22/12/2022
I just wanted to post this because I wanted to raise some awareness, and I’ve blanked out the name because the point of this post isn’t to create a witch hunt. Merely to perhaps provide people with some food for thought.
Portia is a child, and like all of the other children she rides and competes with, works her little self in to the ground trying to better her riding ability, to improve her ponies and just be an all round incredible little human.
Like all of us, young and old, she has bad days, so do her ponies. She didn’t have the best time at HOYS, her ponies were difficult, one is virtually a baby, the other just had a bee in his bonnet. But she came home that weekend, determined to do better. Everyone around her encouraged her, she followed the advice “if at first you don’t succeed, try again” and she does that every time she has an off day.
To add insult to injury, Portia is also severely allergic to horse hair, something she is determined not to let affect her and her love for riding, she also has severe asthma which has seen her rushed to A&E and ventilated from birth, and she STILL fights to ride her ponies. She wakes up at the crack of dawn EVERY day, she rides, she goes to school, she comes home and she rides again. It is her life.
The children that qualified, and those that didn’t are incredible, they have a spirit and determination that some adults cannot comprehend and they all deserved to win.
When these kids ride, let’s celebrate them, let’s not tear them down, let’s encourage those who don’t win that day, let’s reassure them that when they have an off day, that that’s exactly all it is.
Don’t tear people down who are just as deserving as the others. These kind of comments are demoralising, and destructive.
These kids are incredible, and let’s not forget that.