BRIDLEWAY BUDDIES DATABASE - FIND A FRIEND TO RIDE WITH

I have just done this ride for the fourth year in a row, with Dr. Sarah Myhill and a group of 33 riders.

Sarah, who lives at Llangunllo, near Knighton, started exploring this area with her daughters many years ago. Sarah is what I would describe as an extreme rider and nothing daunts her and indeed she faces many exciting challenges as hunt master, team chaser and point to point jockey! She developed a route going from her house across mid Wales to the coast at Borth, taking in plenty of exciting hazards on the way. This ride was adopted by the BHS as a long distance route She tells the story of how she was asked to come to the official opening and turned up in her every day riding gear to find a group of men in suits and ladies in twinsets and pearls. Thinking to lighten up the atmosphere she said that before the ride was named after Prince Llewellyn it had been know as Sarah Myhill’s back passage. She was greeted with silence.

She used to take the Pony Club children on the ride, and even went all the way and rode home too, until Health and Safety put a stop to their fun. So now she takes a group of about 30 friends every year from Tuesday to Friday before the August bank holiday.

This year I rode it on Kis, my very tiny grey Arab mare, aged 24. Previous years I have ridden on Sundance, my Palomino and main endurance horse but, as he is transitioning to barefoot, I felt that this would be too much for him barefoot and worried that I may lose hoofboots in the bogs. Kis has been competing at up to 90k in endurance this season so was very fit.

We all met at Sarah’s on Tuesday and a group of 20 of us set off at midday.

A short ride of about 4 ½ hours, almost all off road,
taking in some amazing views as it was a lovely, hot, sunny day.

We rode over Beacon Hill to near Llanbister to stay with Jan who has putting up with us as a condition of buying her house! She is a rider and makes us all welcome.

The horses are turned out into three fields and this is the night when there is a risk of kicking as the horses are just getting to know each other and aren’t very tired. Our bedding and gear arrives in the lorry and we put camp beds down on stable floors. This is known as the 5 star night. We then have a big barbeque and are joined by extra friends and an extra 13 riders who have ridden from Clun. The party lasts long into the night.

A big breakfast is cooked outdoors the next morning and we are on our way by 9am.
A full day’s riding today. We are a very mixed group, from very small ponies to 17 hand Thoroughbreds, riders aged from 7 years old upwards.

Today we meet quite a few bogs, the worst one has been partly drained but the deep drain is more of a hazard. At least with
a dry year this year the horses aren’t sinking up to their bellies.

We stop for lunch by the side of a quiet road for a couple of hours, the lorry meeting us with food and the horses are
tied to a line of rope.

Again a day of open hills with wild ponies and forest tracks. We arrive at our overnight stop near Llangurig at about 5.30.

The horses have two huge fields of very lush grass and Kis and another grey Arab decide they are the best of friends.
Our accommodation is an old sheep barn, but by this stage we aren’t too fussy about a bit of sheep poo and spiders and
urry animals. We all are loaded into the horsebox and have a meal at the Bluebell at Llangurig.

An early start again as we have lots of challenges today! Some deep bogs again early on and we ride onwards through the
Hafren Forest, crossing the very young river Severn as we do so. Lunch is taken in a meadow beside a river, then on for some
extremely steep hills. These had to be launched at at speed in order to stand any chance of riding up them. There was a way
round the steepest one but that would have been too easy.

Then on across Plynlimon. More steep hills, the “precipice of peril” which is a very narrow track round the side of a steep hill
with a sheer drop.

Day 4 is a long day without a lunch stop as we aim to get to the beach for about 3 for a barbeque. So it was a large breakfast and on the road by 8.30. Sometimes we reminded me of something out of Lord of the Rings and sometimes of an army marching. We only walked, albeit quickly, because of the difficult going and the number of us. The horses looked better and better each day and didn’t get tired at all. I can’t say the same of the riders!

A few bogs and hills, but we were used to them now. We rode on across the hill and through forest, one of the most hazardous tracks where we crossed a felled forest, stepping between branches and deep bog, had been remade as a shale track so this was a relief.

We met civilisation at Talybont and it was a few miles after this that the ride came to an early end for me. We were given the chance to gallop across a field and I can remember thinking this grass is wet and could be slippy, and the next thing I was coming too on the ground. Apparently Kis had slipped at the gallop and I had landed on my head. I was unconscious for three minutes and when I got to Aberystwyth hospital a CT scan showed a bleed on the brain (they found one!) and I had badly broken my collar bone.

Last year we came into Borth, rode down the main street and onto the beach. We rode for several miles along the sand to Ynyslas where we met our transport home. Then it was saddles off to ride well out into the sea and swim the horses back! Or it could have been next stop Ireland!