Introducing Toby

The description of my blog mentions that a horse and cat might appear at times. I decided it was high time you met my equine therapist, Toby, aka Brown Boy, and with various other nicknames too.

For those who want the horsey specifics:

Passport name: Brown Boy (was ever a plainer name given to a handsome horse?!)

Stable name: Toby

Sex: gelding

Breed: Belgian Warmblood

Height: 16.1hh

Age: 19

Colour: bright bay with four white socks and a white snip on his lip

That’s as about concise as it gets. Allowed to return to prose, I can tell stories of Toby for hours; chatter on about his alternating cheeky and confident, then sharp and spooky attitude; fantasise about the competitive heights we might have achieved in different circumstances; and write sermons explaining what he has taught me about my relationship with God. (I have in fact given that talk twice, once at my selection panel for ordination, and in longer form, complete with pictures on PowerPoint, at our informal evening service - and I expect it will make its way into blog form at some point...)

I’ve had him for over 16 years, since he was just backed, and we know each other inside out. He is my friend, playmate, teacher. Like all animals for which we take responsibility, he makes me look beyond myself. He frequently makes me laugh out loud with his mischievous antics, and sometimes exasperates me too. He’s been with me for most of his life and has been utterly patient and forgiving as I have learnt and grown as a rider and horsewoman. I did catch myself rather overstepping the mark earlier this year, in saying to someone how much Toby helped me in my darkest days when I couldn’t really face people, when I referred to to him as my saviour... So let me be really clear, Jesus alone is my Saviour, capital “S”, but Toby is certainly one of the manifestations of God’s love in my life! I adore him, and in amidst all the pressures over the years, and especially recently, he has helped me hold onto a sense of who Katie is, when in other ways I have lost sight of that.

I have ridden since I was seven years old. My aunt, herself a horse lover, bought me my first two riding lessons. My parents picked up the tab thereafter but hoped it was a phase I would grow out of - no such luck!! Somehow they must have realised quite how much this mattered to me. Much of my riding was at riding schools, and in my teens, when we lived in Kenya, I had my own pony for a while - Merlin. I had occasional rides on other people’s horses during university days, and then worked in a big riding school for a year after university. My poor parents: they’d supported me in getting a good degree, and there I was, mucking out stables and training as a riding instructor.

I was sensible in the end, though, and went and got a more conventional graduate job, but that year of full-time horsing around confirmed that I wasn’t leaving horses behind any time soon. I shared someone else’s horses for several years, but it was always my dream to have my own horse. It’s no bad thing to hold onto those childhood longings, after all. Finally the circumstances were right, and Toby came along to fulfil that dream.

He has always been God’s gift to me. I don’t just say that as a statement of gratitude, but as a conviction that I’ve had in my heart from the start. Part of me only comes to life when I’m around horses, though I know that I’m immensely privileged to be able to follow that passion, and I don’t take it for granted. When I was accepted for ordination training, my fear was of having to sell Toby. I remember saying to God, ”I’ll do anything you ask me to do, but I really don’t know if I have it in me to let go of Toby”. Clear as day, God replied: “He has always been my gift to you, and he still is”. That doesn’t mean it’s been straightforward - horse ownership and full-time ordained ministry don’t fit easily together - but it has been possible. And I don’t know how I would manage without him as the counterbalance to the all-encompassing nature of ministry, and as a joy and delight in his own right.

Dear Toby won’t know the difference he makes to me - the life and consolation and hope I find in his 580kg of warm, beautiful horse-ness. He knows what matters to him - kindness, understanding, feed, water, hay, exercise, sleep, and being able to share whatever snack I’m eating. When I’m with him, life is very much simpler, and it’s the one time I am, without trying, able to be entirely in the moment and let this hectic mind quieten down a little.

Here are a few out of my several hundred pictures of the boy himself.