The start of our journey - Getting my first horse
I remember being a stubborn 5 year old little girl hidding her money and recounting it everyday in the hope of finally being able to buy a poney. Obviously, I had no idea of what I would get into and what the real cost of a poney was. Back then, I thought the poney would be quite small so it could just live a pleasant life on my balcony or in the back garden of our building close to the city center of Marseille. No one really took the time to explain to me why it was not a viable solution and no one really took this dream seriously thinking that 5 year old girls usually dream of ponies and 5 year old boys dream of firemen trucks. My family tends to love clichés and it seems sometimes that they are purposely living in one.
For someone that was raised near the city center of such a large city, horse owning and horse riding in general is not a very common thing to do. The closest horse riding facilities are at least 30 minutes driving from your flat (double this time during peak hours!) or about 1 hour by public transport (double this time if the french bus drivers decided to strike on that day!). In such a large city, horse riding is very pricy and I was a terrible child to travel by car (I was always very car sick and I even vomited in the car of a family friend once. Other than that, I was a very cute child.).
While I had put this little girl's dream on the side until I was 20, I kept being fascinated by horses and taking all opportunities to go near them. When I lived in England, more than 3 years ago, three of my friends and I went on a very nice holiday in a very small town on the coast of Wales. We walked a lot through the beautifully wet Welsh countryside and they had to put up with unstoppable-me stopping for 10 minutes every single time we were walking by some horses in a field. Unfortunately for them, there were quite some horses in that part of Wales.
If I was stubborn when I was 5, I was even more stubborn 19 years later. At the beginning of the year 2017, I was about to finish my Master of Science in the Netherlands. I had been living there for about 2 years a half and I had saved quite some money on the side thanks to my part-time job and my student loan. I had kept that money for my studies, as a safety net if I was losing my job or if I had to redo a semester (and because I tend to worry about money issues quite easily). Fortunately, none of that happened, and as I kept watching the boarding clients of the stables where I was taking riding lessons, my dream of owning a horse came back to me. I was convinced of what was going to be my next goal and I defended my decision of buying a horse to my boyfriend as a politician defends its financial plan to its investors. The main difference is that I am my own investor and my boyfriend made it very clear that the horse would be my responsability and that he would never invest a penny in that money draining dream. I cannot count the number of people who thought that it was a terrible idea and I could not hence how much I did not care about everyone else's opinion (wrongly, or not). I sometimes say that I got myself a birthday gift, or a graduation gift as both happened close that same month. Anyway.
In June 2017, I realised my dream and I bought my first horse, Upstar.
While I had put this little girl's dream on the side until I was 20, I kept being fascinated by horses and taking all opportunities to go near them. When I lived in England, more than 3 years ago, three of my friends and I went on a very nice holiday in a very small town on the coast of Wales. We walked a lot through the beautifully wet Welsh countryside and they had to put up with unstoppable-me stopping for 10 minutes every single time we were walking by some horses in a field. Unfortunately for them, there were quite some horses in that part of Wales.
If I was stubborn when I was 5, I was even more stubborn 19 years later. At the beginning of the year 2017, I was about to finish my Master of Science in the Netherlands. I had been living there for about 2 years a half and I had saved quite some money on the side thanks to my part-time job and my student loan. I had kept that money for my studies, as a safety net if I was losing my job or if I had to redo a semester (and because I tend to worry about money issues quite easily). Fortunately, none of that happened, and as I kept watching the boarding clients of the stables where I was taking riding lessons, my dream of owning a horse came back to me. I was convinced of what was going to be my next goal and I defended my decision of buying a horse to my boyfriend as a politician defends its financial plan to its investors. The main difference is that I am my own investor and my boyfriend made it very clear that the horse would be my responsability and that he would never invest a penny in that money draining dream. I cannot count the number of people who thought that it was a terrible idea and I could not hence how much I did not care about everyone else's opinion (wrongly, or not). I sometimes say that I got myself a birthday gift, or a graduation gift as both happened close that same month. Anyway.
In June 2017, I realised my dream and I bought my first horse, Upstar.
