Riding on Water: ii Sir Lancelot

2012 Arabian gelding 💜

Silvern Lance x Johremar El Khartoum

My very first liveries came to my little yard on December 28th, 2015. It was hardly a yard at all then, to be honest; just a collection of paddocks with horses in them - I think there were three fields in all, and a lungeing ring that sloped awfully and had a track worn around the outside. It was a groundbreaking moment when I got my first hosepipe. We all rode in one of the fields, shooing the other horses away if they got in the way of the jumps, which were just stacks of tyres with poles on top at first. There was space and freedom and beauty and potential, so despite the lack of facilities, it felt absolutely glorious, and in the next five years we would come a very long way - all thanks to my parents, who listened to my crazy teenage ideas and allowed me to start a stableyard on their dairy farm.

Anyway, of my first two liveries, one was a buckskin gelding named Zorro (who stayed with us until his kiddo grew up) and his child was turning thirteen that following New Year's Day. Her grandmother had gotten her a picture-perfect dapple-grey Arabian gelding for her birthday, and he arrived on January 1st, 2016, with ribbons in his mane and kindness in his big brown eyes. He was not yet four years old, and his coat was covered in perfect rosy chestnut dapples, a remnant of his vibrantly scarlet foal coat. His name was Sir Lancelot. We never called him that; he's been Lancey since the day he arrived.

Lancelot was bred by Inanna-Ishtar Arabians, a stud just down the gravel road from our farm, and he was the first foal on the ground by imported stallion Silvern Lance. Bred from primarily Crabbet lines, Silvern Lance was born on the grounds of Belvoir Castle in England. I would have the honour of riding him later on, and have seldom laid eyes on a stallion who was quite so sweet and gentlemanly. He never put a foot wrong, never, and was a pleasure in every way. Little did I know that his firstborn son would turn out be exactly the same.

Lancelot's beginnings were less auspicious than his esteemed sire's. His dam, El-Shama Pamirah, a beautiful and sweet little white mare, was unwell when he was born. She dried up and rejected her foal, and Lancey ended up in his breeders' house for a while, being hand raised. Where so many orphans become absolute monsters, Lancey turned into a total pet. To this day, he prefers human company to equine.

When the little fellow first arrived at my yard, I was excited to train my first Arabian for his teenage kid. We got started in February 2016, and my uneducated self was completely perplexed by his habit of stretching all the way down on the lunge. I just didn't get it. What was more, I found him rather more fiery than the crossbreds and Nooities I was training at the time. "Got quite the buck on him," I wrote in his training journal, intimidated. On February 25th, 2016, the day after my nineteenth birthday, I sat on him for the first time. I was terrified. I had no idea that I was handling the kindest horse I would ever know.

By September, Lancey and I had finally come to an understanding, and we started to really get along in 2017. I thought he was silly where he was really just being a baby Arabian with a brain. We went to our first jumping show, and he snorted and spooked, but jumped everything without so much as a second glance.

We competed in both dressage and jumping that year. Five-year-old Lancey still had the attention span of the average gnat, but he was such a good and willing horse, never stopping or running out even when I gave him every reason to do so. We also rode some Prelim tests; I had to go straight in without a warmup or his baby brain would be tired by the middle of the second test, but we scored in the high 60s even under a strict judge.

The lack of rein stops makes me criiinge but look at his beachy waves

We also jumped up to 80cm; he proved to be as careful as he was scopey, and while the steering could be a little questionable at times, he jumped every fence he was aimed at - and even a few that he wasn't exactly aimed at. Cutting turns in jump-offs occasionally resulted in jumping the wrong fence backwards if one wasn't careful.

By about the middle of 2017, Lancey was the perfect little SANESA horse, and I relinquished the ride for his teenager. She shared him with her seven-year-old sister, who did the lead rein classes while the teenager jumped and did dressage. Lancey was golden-hearted and the teenager was kind, yet for some reason they never really got along. It was only after two years of this that I would finally realize that they weren't getting along because he was my heart horse, not hers.

In early 2019, Lancey's teenager needed to give up one of the two horses. Zorro had always been the second half of her heart, so Lancey was the one to go. I was flat broke, burning out on two different careers, and unsure of where I wanted to be in my equestrian life. I needed another horse like I needed a hole in the head. But I had finally come to realize, at least, that there would only ever be one Lancey. That this kind of friendliness, generosity, love and sheer cuteness only came around once in a lifetime. I bought him, and I will never regret it.

Lancey's dressage at the time was an unmitigated disaster. He knew every way possible to sneak out of a contact and go as hollow as he pleased; there was no concept of bend and balance was totally out of the question. I spent the next two years riding him at home, barring Horse of the Year Show and a distance ride, because our dressage was just too appalling to be seen in public.

It was frustrating, but at the same time, he was opening up a whole new world for me that I had been missing for years: outrides. Skye had been the best horse to ride out, never putting a hoof wrong with me. Arwen was great, too, but gallop sets had made her more of a thrill than just a relaxing hack - which was exactly what my adult self really needed. Thunder was good, but not by himself. Everyone else at the yard was out enjoying the fields and galloping around. Adulthood was hitting me hard that year, and there were many days that I just wanted to walk through the woods on a loose rein.

And Lancey was there for me when I needed that. Years of falling off client horses on the trails had made me jittery of riding out, but he changed it all. Even though for months I would ride only at a walk, only with quiet companions, and always with a white-knuckled grip on the reins, he fixed me completely. Now I can canter him across the fields one-handed, finally enjoying the wind in my face again.

In the last few months, my precious Lancey's dressage has also finally come to a place where we're ready to compete. We made our debut at Elementary in June 2021.

He's a very different ride to the Friesians I'm used to, and I'm learning to ride him even as he's learning this dressage stuff, but we're enjoying it together at last. He has an explosive extension on him and a perfectly packaged little Arab canter, and I love dancing with this sweet little guy.

In the winter of 2021, we also started doing longer rides with friends, and my confidence is growing by the ride. He is never hot, but he has this I-can-do-this-all-day attitude as soon as his little feet hit the trail, and he will go and go and go and go without quitting or even seeming tired or bored.