Chapter 15, in which I ride a horse

When I arrived at Ballybeg, in Tipperary, Erica took me to meet a good friend and neighbor of hers; she and Simon would be away for the week and, since I was staying in their amazing place, she wanted to be sure I had someone to phone if I should run into difficulty.

            Breda has the wiry body of a lifelong athlete, but these days she lives to ride. She has just retired from teaching at the earliest age she can here, 55. When we got to her house she was celebrating her first-place win in a grueling competition that included dressage and cross-country. Her horse is Levi, aged 22. Breda says that their combined age must make them far older than any other pair in the competition. As Erica and I were leaving, Breda suddenly asked me if I wanted to go riding. I said yes before I had time to think about it. My allergies have been very calm this summer, and when would I ever be likely to get another chance to ride in Ireland?

            Tuesday morning I headed down Simon and Erica’s terrifying boreen to Breda’s. She fed me a huge breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon rashers, grilled tomato and toast, and then we headed out to get Levi into the horse trailer and drive off to the woods. Although Breda has two horses, she was leaving Bailey at home today and would walk with me as I rode. This is standard procedure for Breda when she doesn’t know the rider, and goodness knows I hadn’t been on a horse for so long that I wasn’t sure I could manage to stay on, or even to get on for that matter.

            Breda herself only began riding when she was in her 30s. In this island of the horse-mad, it is still unusual for someone to be so involved with horses in the absence of any family background. Still, Breda is obviously an athlete through and through. Her husband Greg is even more active; at nearly 60 he windsurfs, paraglides, skis, plays squash and hikes. Today he is away in Swtizerland on a two-week rock-climbing trip. When Breda bought her first horse (Allegra, who died at 29) she was upset that her riding in the winter was curtailed by the dark; she built a paddock and put lights in it so she could ride after work.

            Once Levi was in the trailer we drove to the wooded area just below one of the most famous spots in Ireland. The Vee is a spot in the Knockmealdown Mountains from which it would seem that you could see across the entire island on a clear day. It’s one of the main destinations for hill walkers here. Our destination was more prosaic: the forest land at the foot of the mountains, now in plantation, as is much of Ireland since its wonderful forests were systematically denuded over many centuries.

            Levi is a dream horse. He has plenty of spirit but seemingly endless patience with a rookie rider like me. But if I was expecting an easy amble rather in the style of the horseback rides on rented animals that were nearly my whole experience with horses, Breda was having none of it. She had me going up and down a few (admittedly very low) ridges, practicing leaning forward, then back, reminding me to keep my heels down, teaching me to hold the reins, to make my control clear to the long-suffering Levi. At one point she had me trot a few times while she called out the cadence of up-hold-down as I tried not to simply bounce in the saddle. I rode for an hour, until I knew that if I didn’t stop I would be sore for a week. When I slid down off the horse my legs nearly buckled underneath me, but the exhilaration of being on Levi would stay with me for the rest of the day.

            After the ride we drove up into The Vee just as the rain started. The view was clouded but I still felt I was seeing halfway across Ireland.