The moment I knew

And then there were two

My grey gelding Silvan hung his head over the gate and rested his nose gently on the girl’s shoulder. He stayed there, eyes half closed, suddenly not bothered by the flies he had spent the past hour complaining about. He was free to wander off down the paddock to join his herd mates, but he stayed. The girl smiled softly and reached her hand up to stroke him. That was the moment that I knew. I knew I would sell him to them. I knew they would buy him. I knew he would be happy with them.

They had come in response to an advert I put up on a horse classifieds web site. It had been a tough decision to decide to sell Silvan, but logic said it was the thing to do. I bought him only a year ago with the intention that he and I would do endurance riding together.

Endurance riding is long distance riding – official training rides are 20km or 40km long; actual rides 80km, 120km or 160km. I’ve been playing around on the edges of the sport for a while but am very much a beginner at it. Over the past few years, I’ve completed 20km rides on my mare Floss, but she’s too old to ask to do the longer distances. This season did my first 40km rides on a friend’s brilliant and experienced endurance horse, but not on Silvan. I didn’t manage to get him fit enough for that distance (or myself if truth be told – a fact that was evident to anyone who saw me hobbling along after I finished the 40km rides). My plan was that I would put a big effort in next year. But plans change.

This particular plan changed for two reasons. Firstly, my husband and I decided not to move back to the country just yet, so my horses had to stay in agistment an hour away from where we live. That means anything I do with them has to factor in an extra couple of hours for travel, which is limiting, to put it mildly. Secondly, I got a book deal. It’s funny to write that here, as if it’s the sort of thing that happens to me every day. It’s not. It’s something I’ve been working towards for a long time. Years. Decades. So now that it’s finally come together, I’m determined to make it work. That means reassessing priorities and time commitments. Selling a horse was the logical thing to do. Silvan was the one I chose to sell, mainly because he’s the only one I could sell.

I have two other horses. Floss is my old girl. She’s too old to sell, and in any case, I’ve had her a long time and could not part with her. Dante is younger but has issues with soundness. I feel a responsibility to him that I can’t pass on. Besides, my daughter loves him to bits. Silvan was the logical choice.

Yet still it wasn’t easy. I had never advertised a horse for sale before. When I bought Silvan, I expected to have him for years, as I have my other horses. I hadn’t done all I had set out to do with him. A part of me thought I was letting him down, letting myself down. But my changed circumstances meant I had to do something. I did not want to spread myself too thinly. I needed some focus. Floss and Dante would be more than enough equine commitment for me.

I published the advert and my phone started ringing. I spent the next three and a half hours on the phone, talking to prospective buyers. Eventually, I put my phone on silent and ignored it. In the next few hours, I received a dozen text messages and more phone messages. After seven hours, I took the ad down. It had had nearly 400 views. I was completely overwhelmed. How would I ever choose someone to be Silvan’s new person?

I decided to be honest to the point of trying to turn people off. “He’s belligerent,” I said. “He’s got more whoa than go. He’s been known to kick out at other horses. He’s not always balanced. He’s not a push button pony club horse.” I listed his bad points over and over. Despite my negativity, I ended up with a list of four or five people who were keen to come and see him. They were literally queuing up.

A friend of a friend came first. She looked Silvan over and she and her friend rode him around the paddock. She deliberated as we stood in the paddock with Silvan between us. Clearly, she liked him. “I don’t think he’s strong enough in the back end,” she said finally. I nodded. It was a fair call. Silvan’s hind end weakness had been one of the points I had been telling people about in an effort to cut down the number of people who wanted to come and meet him. Building up his hind quarters was something I had been working on for a few months. I was pleased with the progress we had made but I would be the first to admit that we had a way to go.

After that first prospective buyer left, I rang the teenage girl’s mother and said Silvan was still available but that I was worried the girl wasn’t experienced enough to ride him. We agreed I would speak to the girl’s riding coach. That conversation calmed my worries. The next weekend, the family drove five hours to come and meet Silvan. He behaved badly. It was hot and the flies were terrible. He didn’t want to do anything. I rode him around so they could see him in action, and then the girl got on and had a ride. He was lazy but didn’t exactly do anything wrong.

The parents and the girl asked me lots of questions. I answered honestly. I liked them. They said they liked Silvan and were interested in buying him, but would show the video of the girl riding him to their coach, and they would want to get a vet check done. I was pleased they wanted to do their due diligence. I was confident the vet would pronounce Silvan fit for the task ahead of him and that the girl’s coach would be happy with what he saw. We talked details about how the next stage would unfold - sorting the vet check, what gear I would sell with him, how we would organise the truck to transport him if they did go ahead with the purchase.

As we talked, I unsaddled Silvan and put him back in the paddock. And instead of running off down to his herd buddies, he stayed by the gate and rested his head on the girl’s shoulder and I knew he had found his new person.

Inside

The book deal I mentioned above is all but signed. My book What’s for Dinner? will be published by Thames and Hudson Australia in 2023. It’s a work of creative non-fiction about food, farming and environment, written with eaters in mind. It will draw on my decades of writing about Australian agriculture and environment, and my interactions with farms and farmers. I have a load of work to do, but I’m thrilled to be doing it. I’ll be spending a lot of time sitting at my computer in coming months, but a lot of my thinking time will be spent outside walking, hanging out with my remaining two horses, riding and gardening.

Thanks for reading.

Jill