Ravenswell reset

In between the top-notch National Hunt racing weekends and the Christmas preparations, I promised myself (and a few others) that I’d find the time to sit down and write a quick post about our recent trip to Fergal O’Brien’s stables at Ravenswell Farm in Gloucestershire.

It’s not the first time I’ve been, but it was a first visit for my husband. Matthew has previously gone with me to visit Oliver Sherwood and ever since has been keen to do another stable visit. Shockingly, he had never done a day at the races (which seems a lax pre-marriage check on my part), so we decided to tie our visit in with the Cheltenham November Meeting.

O’Brien and his team always emphasise that the stable is open to welcome visitors: as well as owners, they welcome people who are struggling with mental or physical health and wish to spend some time around horses, families with young children, and people who want to learn more about racehorse care. In short, if you want to visit a racehorse, they’re your people. The only real pre-requisite to turning up is that you do so with an offering of cake for the team.

So having done a Friday night stop-off for cake in Waitrose (it’s really better manners to home-bake, but we were coming straight from work…), we crashed at a Premier Inn in Cheltenham to be ready to be up early to watch the horses ride out.

We managed to get up, ready and breakfasted in time to arrive between the first and second strings, getting to Ravenswell by around 7.30. This is still what we childless office workers would call ‘the crack of dawn’ for a Saturday morning, which feels very churlish given that the O’Brien team had been up for hours at that point in fairly grim autumnal weather.

The ever-ebullient trainer himself greeted us and had us make ourselves at home with tea and cake before we headed out to the gallops with various other visitors. Even on what was a fairly grey day, the sight of the horses schooling on the flat and then over the jumps was a deeply uplifting sight for the soul. It is fascinating to watch how the stable staff and trainer know every inch of each horse and can comment on performance, health and temperament from even the smallest alteration in gait.

Having watched the schooling, we were then free to roam the stables. The operation at Ravenswell is big but the atmosphere is of one big family. The stable staff, up from the early hours cleaning, mucking out, feeding, riding out…wash, rinse and repeat…, are cheerful, polite and welcoming, and their absolute adoration of the animals they look after shines through. Loiter by a ‘favourite’ of theirs and the anecdotes will flow: a clear sign of the fact that the horses are far more than a job to them.

It’s easy to see why: on the racecourse, these animals are powerful, magnificent athletes. Up close, however, they are inquisitive friends who love a chin scratch and who, given half a chance, will get their nose into your pockets to investigate if you might have a polo in there for them. It is impossible not to fall in love with each and every one (even when they’re nibbling your jacket).

This has been a long year – full of wonderful highs, but also with plenty of stresses and difficulties.

Over the past two months, I have found social media particularly hard. On Twitter, I took a stance on a subject that is very important to me but that is universally divisive, and though I did so with my eyes open, I still wasn’t mentally prepared for the comments and attacks.

Having got through that, I somehow ended up on the receiving end of vitriol from someone who disagreed with my opinions on James Bond (yes, really). Foolish as this undoubtedly sounds – and is – it resulted in three weeks of an obscure account bombarding me. At one point, in a three-day period, she tweeted about me nearly sixty times. While this behaviour is as laughable as it is toxic, it becomes exhausting and upsetting when conducted so obsessively and relentlessly.

Sometimes a step away from the toxicity of social media discourse is entirely necessary to preserve one’s sanity.

Being outside, being around animals and completely removing myself mentally from such stresses is my way of resetting. Closing the computer and visiting Fergal and the team was the personal restart I needed to power through to the end of the year.

We can’t thank them enough for the welcome they gave us, nor can we wait for our next visit. In the meantime, we’ll be following the magnificent O’Brien horses as they head to the racecourse…with a special place in our hearts for those four-legged friends we shared nuzzles with.