Gees! What a ride!

Part 1 – Janie

My heart is racing just thinking about writing this. Even now, it brings back so much pain and hurt. But I also believe it’s an important story to tell.

When I was about six years old, I was living with Dad. One day he bought us a horse from a friend, a beautiful grey and white paint. Looking back now, I realise what an incredible horse she really was.

Although she didn’t do a lot for me at first—my legs were far too short!—she taught me more than I could have imagined.

She taught me how to dismount quickly if she decided it was the perfect time to roll while I was still on her back. She taught me that grey horses are almost impossible to keep clean, that if you can’t stop, sometimes your best option is to point them at a fence and hope they stop before jumping over it, that some horses think hay bale jumps are actually lunch and that if you became frustrated, it won’t help.

She also taught me beautiful things.

She taught me that swimming a horse feels like nothing else in the world. That horses give so much without ever asking for much in return. That they are patient, forgiving, and incredibly tolerant of the little humans who are learning alongside them.

Her name was Janie.

Looking back, she gave me some of the most amazing memories.

We would journey out and about, through town, along the water for hours and hours, packed a lunch and we were FREE!!!! At a young age I was dropped to the paddock and had to “tap” the pay phone to get a ride home…….

I would talk to her, I would confide in her and she would always listen. That time spent with her alone, was the best therapy a child could ask for…. I would share my sandwich with her, always bought her an apple and off we went on an adventure….

What none of us knew when Dad bought her was that Janie was in foal.

One day we walked into the paddock and found the most wonderful surprise—a beautiful paint foal standing beside her. Someone driving past had even carved the foal’s date and time of birth into the wooden gate for us. It’s funny the little things that stay with you.

The decision was made to swap the foal for a young horse that we could eventually ride once she had been broken in.

That’s when Rainfall entered my life.

She was a two-year-old Anglo-Arab, and when we first got her she was the strangest dirty grey colour. I don’t remember much about collecting her, but I do remember chasing a herd into the yards. During the chaos, someone asked me what I wanted to call “my horse.”

It was pouring with rain.

Without giving it much thought, I answered, “Rainfall.”

The name stuck.

For weeks she was tied up in the backyard. Every day we would go out with hedge clippers and cut sacks of grass by hand to feed her.

I couldn’t wait to get home from school to see her.

I’d play music for her. I’d sing to her. I’d carry her feed, change her water, and spend every spare minute I could beside her.

But I also worried about her.

Seeing her tied to that pole day after day broke my heart. There wasn’t much I could do—I was only a little girl—but I tried to make her days a little brighter in every way I knew how, while making sure I didn’t upset anyone.

When the process of “breaking her in” began, I watched things happen that made me deeply uncomfortable. Even as a child, I knew they didn’t feel right. They made me sad, and they stayed with me.

That little girl made herself a promise.

One day, when I had the chance to start my own horses, I would do it differently.

Thankfully, they never broke Rainfall’s spirit.

She was a sassy mare with a huge heart. She was unbelievably fast and almost impossible to stop lol. She could be stubborn, opinionated, and she’d test me at times.

But she also made me a better horse person.

And, without either of us knowing it at the time…

She was about to change my life forever.