Day 3 - Horse Ride for Henry and Kyle

Not the best start to the day. I discovered a really nasty girth sore on Lime that I missed last night in the fading light and my desire to get warm and dry. Osh also had a really sore back to the point that Cara was unsure if she should continue. I swapped girths and put some sheepskin padding and lots of sudocrem on and we took the decision to continue as the alternative was to give up which neither of us felt ready to do. But we both felt really guilty.

Both horses seemed to cope fine with the morning, despite the constant rain but by mid afternoon I could feel that Lime wasn't right. He's normally really forward going but I was having to nag him forward constantly and we were getting slower and slower. The map we had bore no resemblance to the route the sign posts were taking us and we must have covered around 5-6 miles more than we expected to do. I decided to get off and loosen off Lime's girth and walk the rest. We met Mike at the next road crossing and I realised there was no way we would make it before dark if I walked it all. I couldn't contemplate coming all this way and then just having to give up but I couldn't bear to ride knowing Lime was sore. It felt so unfair that the ride was challenging enough without having any more difficulties thrown at us after all the hiccups we'd had to overcome to get here in the first place.

So my only option was to leave the saddle and ride the rest of it bareback. I could tell Mike was really worried about it, especially as we were due to ride under the M62 later that day, but Lime was a star and really looked after me. We cheered up a bit when Mike said he'd sorted us out stables for the horses for the night and a camping pod with heating and after we comsumed a family sized bar of chocolate!!

The motorway crossing was uneventful - we went under a huge bridge but it was quite weird looking up and seeing the lorries hurtling by way up above. It was nearly dark when we got to the livery yard where the horses were staying. Whilst the owner had offered us a tent pitch and a bucket in the corner of the stable to wee in (!) we decided to opt for a campsite which unfortunately was a 20 min drive from the horses. Lime has never been that happy in a stable as he lives out all year round so it was really hard to leave him knowing I wouldn't be back until morning. He was really edgy and I wanted to stay with him till he was more settled but at the same time Toby was in the campervan with Mike and really needed to go to bed. Felt torn in two.

It was a bad end to a bad day and we all felt really really low. I slept really badly - having nightmares about finding Lime flat out in the stable drenched in sweat.

Horse Ride for Henry and Kyle