After years away from the equestrian world, I never expected one traditional cob called Magner to reignite my passion for horses, competition and everything in between. This is the story of how one pony changed the course of my life. I went to help my mum move a horse on Halloween 2025. I came home with something I thought I’d lost forever.

In my last post, I briefly summarised what has happened in the eight years since I stopped updating all of my social media and essentially fell off the face of the equestrian planet. You can read about that here.

At the end of that post, I mentioned that on Halloween 2025, I helped my mum move her horse Minnie to a friends house. I truly had no intentions of really getting back into horses; although I loved them, nothing had ever felt the same since I had lost Tobias. When I wandered onto the yard that day, I had a look around at the horses he had on the yard – of course there was Jimmy, the shetland pony he had gifted us a few years prior but who lives at his yard; Queenie, a beautiful 16.2hh coloured mare, and tucked away in a stable was a beautiful, flaxen liver chestnut gelding – Magner.

Magner, a 14hh 6 year old gelding, had not long arrived on the yard after spending over six months in the field. Something about him just captured my interest, he was so affectionate but cheeky at the same time. He loved being fussed over, accepting any form of attention and particularly enjoyed a tasty treat – mint crumbles being a firm favourite. I immediately asked about him, what he had done, as I knew he was for sale but never in a million years did I ever think he would join our family. I simply didn’t have enough money saved. I’d only been home for three months and was working in a temporary teaching job. HMRC had put me on an emergency tax code, so a huge chunk of my wages disappeared before I even saw it. Every month I was putting money aside just to survive the school holidays – buying a horse felt completely impossible.

I quickly learnt that Magner had spent his life visiting different horse fairs – Omagh, Ballycastle (Llamas), and had been living up in Derry/Londonderry before coming to my friends place. He was broken to drive, and had been used for this for a few years. As far as my friend knew, he was also broke to ride – I later found out that this was not the case though, when I hopped on him and you would’ve thought I was trying to murder him!

Over the next few months, I slowly started to care for Magner – constantly joking to his owner that no one would ever want to buy him because he was horrible, awfully mannered, and he couldn’t possibly go to a new home without being taught a few things first. To my surprise, he did stay on the yard – I have no doubt some people wanted to buy him – but I also think that Davy knew I needed Magner, who was not only making me fall in love with horses again, but was making me connect with a part of myself that died with Tobias. Looking back now, there was probably a moment when I knew I was in trouble. I found myself arriving at the yard and heading straight to Magners stable before even saying hello to anyone. I’d buy treats “for the horses” and somehow they always ended up in his bucket. I was spending more time thinking about him than I cared to admit.

Magner slowly started to learn the ropes, and together my mum and I brought him back into work starting with long-reining him, working on lunging, simple things like leading him through various different scenarios. We then put a bridle on him again, without blinkers/blinds, and the day came to try and have a sit. Keep in mind – I was under the illusion that he was broken to ride – so when we attempted this, we thought it would all go smoothly.

We took Magner out the back into a large barn area, and I began by leaning over him as you would with any young horse – patting his sides, a little bit of weight leaning over, before eventually sitting on him bareback whilst my mum held him. Well, I certainly didn’t sit on him for very long. As soon as I sat on his back, he completely panicked – trying to run off and bronc. I emergency exited off him and we went back to the drawing board of “I really don’t think this pony has ever had someone sit on him”. Now, this wasn’t anything against our friend – he was just telling us what he had been told about him.

That was at the end of November, and we then took a step back and started him as if he had never been sat on before. He got lots of leaning over, walking around with a saddle on his back with the stirrups hanging etc. He was really coming along, and I was becoming more and more aware that the possibility of him leaving was becoming more real – and I was heartbroken at the thought of it. I was buying him things and he wasn’t even my pony – I decided I thought he was cold, and needed a rug (he had probably never worn a rug in his life). I was grooming him everyday and buying mane and tail spray. I was building a solid foundation with him on the ground and doing everything I could to spend time with this pony, finding any excuse.

Then Christmas rolled around… and I was lucky enough to receive some money from a family member. That money was enough for Magner to join our family. I remember staring at my bank account repeatedly, before I received this gift, a true Christmas miracle, and trying to make the numbers work. Buying a horse wasn’t sensible. In fact, financially it was probably one of the least sensible decisions I could have made at that point in my life – I wasn’t long home, was on a temporary contract, and would go periods of a few months without income over the school holidays. But sometimes your heart makes a decision long before your head catches up. Our friend did us a solid on him, and knew how much I loved him – and Magner became mine.

Before Magner, I still called myself a horse lover, but I avoided horse shows, stopped following equestrian accounts, and convinced myself that chapter of my life was over. After Magner, I found myself checking the weather for riding plans, watching training videos at midnight, and feeling excited about horses for the first time in years. Suddenly my life was revolving around what I could teach him to do, what things we could do together – and he even got me to look after myself better. Over the time period from 2022 – 2025, I had gained a lot of weight – due to various medical reasons, but honestly, due to depression too. I had went through so many major events in my life that I didn’t really acknowledge, but with Magner being smaller, I knew if I wanted to do stuff with him, I needed to change my own habits so that we could do it together.

Magner has taught me so much in 10 months since I met him – some of them very important life lessons:

• Healing doesn’t happen all at once.
• You can love horses again without replacing the horse you lost.
• Sometimes the horse that changes your life is the one you never planned to buy.
• Starting from scratch can be terrifying, but it can also be the beginning of something better.

What I didn’t realise was that buying Magner was the easy part. The real challenge was still to come. I had bought a pony that had barely been ridden, had no competition experience, and who was about to be partnered with someone who hadn’t competed in almost a decade. But that little cob standing in front of me would eventually take me back into the show ring, back into the equestrian community, and back to a version of myself I thought I’d lost forever. Magner didn’t replace Tobias – but he helped me find the part of myself that disappeared when I lost him.

Have you ever stepped away from horses and found your way back because of one special horse or pony? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.