Best-laid plans are scuppered, but the hardy few who brave the sleet are rewarded with a great day – while Tessa Waugh’s mother provides the gold standard in plucky perseverance
How long do you expect to carry on riding? Hunting, for that matter? Make a clean break at 60? Carry on for as long as you can like The Queen? Wait until your horse gives up the ghost and retire with them, or plan to “die in action” on the hunting field, as a friend from the South and West Wilts once told me she hoped to do.
I’ve heard people make a case for all of the above, and I was thinking about this on Saturday as I watched my mother gamely step aboard a friend’s horse for a day with the College Valley.