A day in the life

We usually wake up at 7am. It’s such a great pleasure to open the bedroom door and see the magnificent view of the valley. There’s no one, just us. By the time we drag ourselves out of the bed, put some music on, have breakfast and a nice Indian masala chai (tea) we leave the house by 8-8.30am. It’s usually a bit chilly at that time and we have several layers on - we know we will soon be peeling them off. Our first task, to really get the day going, is to catch the horses we want to ride. We drive down 1km to the lower paddock and park the car inside (the owners kindly loaned us an old SUV). We catch a horse each, tack it and ride for a while, practising our polo hits or riding technique. We do the same with another horse before heading back to the main barn where Dan and Nick usually are working with the young horses. I will usually take some time to work on my two little projects (the filly and the gelding). Once we’re done, it’s time to break for lunch. 

After a quick lunch we go to herd the horses from the pasture into a small paddock so that we can catch them more easily in between chukkas. The afternoon is usually spent playing 3 extended matches - Manjeev & I against Dan & Nick. They are both very good players so our learning curve is pretty steep but the gap has definitely narrowed since we arrived. By the time we’re done with chukkas we are physically knackered. We drag ourselves back to the house for some tea break before getting into our Monty Roberts theoretical homework (anatomy, husbandry, feeding etc) until dinner. 

All in all, we are doing exactly what we want to be doing.