#galop

The My Cup of Tea fanzine is pleased to announce our charity of choice:

Galop - A UK Charity in support of LGBT+ people who have experienced abuse and violence

From their website:

“Galop works directly with thousands of LGBT+ people who have experienced abuse and violence every year. We specialise in supporting victims and survivors of domestic abuse, sexual violence, hate crime, honour-based abuse, forced marriage, so-called conversion therapies, and other forms of interpersonal abuse. We are a service run by LGBT+ people, for LGBT+ people, and the needs of our community are at the centre of what we do.”

POV Frederic Hanson

Lately I have been spending a lot of time with Froya (Einarsdottir) who is the trainer of one of the best friends of the horse I am currently training. I train Flóki while she is training Gyllír. The stallions are literally best friends, and does everything together in the stallion herd. Gyllír (the one to the right) protected Flóki when he first joined the herd, and him being one of the bulkiest (yet shortest) stallions in the pasture helped him take care of Flóki.

Spending time with Froya and Gyllír made me realize that while she is a few years younger than me, she is as much as an adult as me, and I really enjoy her company. How do I tell her that I like her more than a friend though? Cantering then galopping around the fields around the grounds today made me realize that. That I liked her, that I was probably in love with her too.

I was a little nervous, when we slowed the horses down to tölt, so I took the job as lead rider, though she just laughed and and asked me to "Slow down, you dummy!".

"Yeah?" I replied, looking back at her, while expertly controlling Flóki under me.

"Seriously, just bc your horse is faster than mine, doesn't mean you can't wait a little!" she laughed back, and stuck out her tongue at me.

"For the record Flóki is not faster, he is just older and more sure on his feet and in his tölt."

"Still that doesn't excuse his clumsiness," she grumbled, and slowed down into walk after Gyllír had become kind of out of breath.

"Don't be so hard on yourself. You only began tölting on Gyllír for a month now, right?" he slowed his horse down into walk too, and even stopped him completely, so Froya and her steed could catch up with them. He patted her on the shoulder, and added, "And not every horse can be like Hrafn, who was clearly born to tölt."

She looked thoughtful for a long while, but as they arrived back to Upkeep's facilities she nodded with a kind of finality that I hadn't seen in her before, "You are right. It's just... before I came here it had been Hrafn and me for such a long time and..." she halted.

"... and you are struggling to not compare every other horse to him," I finished her sentence with the kind of ease that you can only master, when you know someone very well. And I do know Froya pretty well by now.

She just nodded. I pat her on the shoulder again.

"You did it once, you can do it again," I said, trying to cheer her up.

She gave me a watery smile in return, but nodded. I just hope she will trust herself more in the future, because I am sure she can take on any horse. Even one as clumsy in tölt as Gyllír.