About The Author - Katie Haggath
Katie Haggath (20) loves writing and horses. She lives in NZ on 10 acres with her parents and a petting zoo's worth
of animals. When Katie's article dropped into the email in-box in the office it was one of those `can't stop reading this'
moments. Here was a young rider and writer who publically admitted that she knew very little about handling a young
horse, yet has the desire to learn and can see the humorous side of this learning experience. All horsemen and women
have had to go through the learning process at some stage in their lives...but not everyone has the writing ability, humour
and guts to share this journey with readers of a national equestrian magazine. Katie has recently taken on a young horse,
with the aim being to train him (from scratch) and to break him in herself next year so, be prepared to share all the errors
and the successes as we follow Katie and Felix over the next twelve months in their journey of learning horsemanship.
INTRODUCING Illustrator Kay Thornton, a very talented artist who was one of the many who responded to our Facebook
enquiries for someone to illustrate this series. See more of Kay's horse illustrations at her Funny-Horse-Cartoons page
on Facebook.
next float over needed someone to lead a donkey.
They had three champions you see and there were
only two of them. And so, I led a very pretty (well
behaved) little Jerusalem jenny to the merry music of
a marching band in green kilts. I do hope that Murphy
was watching.
Inexperience struck again when we realised that the
people who'd parked their floats beside and behind
us were there for the duration. Nobody told us: make
sure you can get out of your parking space easily.
We were stuck until four o'clock. It was twenty six
degrees and cold drinks were sold out in every stall
except the British Food store, which still had Orangina
and Dandelion, and Burdock, both of which are
drinks which Kiwi's don't recognise or understand.
Nonetheless Dad and I managed to scrape together
the change for two hot dogs and a can of each of those
drinks, and then obediently followed Mum in search
of the sole remaining van that still served coffee.
Mum and I unplaited Felix to the sounds of what was
either the Young Farmers Final or the Show-Jumping
gone overtime. I'm not certain, I was by the float
unplaiting Felix after all. All I know is that the DJ for
the Oxford Show must be a genius; he managed to
follow up William Tell with ACDC and Crazy Frog
without sounding completely nuts. And like any
good show goer, after Felix was endowed a glorious
afro, we headed to explore the stalls.
We managed to
find the saddlery
stalls eventually.
Eight hours at the Oxford A&P Show and we finally
found the Saddlery stalls; I managed to walk away
with a brand spanking new red leather bridle for the
whopping great price of five dollars. It didn't have
reins. They must have been incredible reins if their
loss devalued it so much but I wasn't about to argue.
I have a pair of dark brown reins that will go nicely
with the brown trim. Look forward to seeing that
when I break Felix in at last!
We rounded off the day enjoying the terrier races.
I assumed, when I heard the race announced, that
small dogs would be going for a run. They did. Their
owners ran up and down carrying their small dogs.
There were a few porky pooches in that race. I can't
imagine why, clearly the owners take them for a run
quite often.
At long last the people behind us left and we could
back the float up. Well thought out treats of bread
and apple bribed Felix and Murphy back onto the
float and we got the ramp up. Mum carefully fended
off the Shetland, pony and donkey tied to the float
next door and I called useless directions. Dad backed
up and we trundled on home, ready to put the horses
away, toss out some hay for the cows, and collapse
into bed.
All in all, I think it was a good day!
The real Katie with Felix at their first outing at the
Oxford A & P Show in New Zealand.