Tiger

You'd think having four children would dilute their preciousness, wouldn't you? Well, it's not the case this house - I'm such an over protective Mummy I've been banned from Rex's rugby matches - banned by Rex, I might add - he's afraid I'll run onto the pitch and scold anyone who tackles him.
Tonight Maud had a riding lesson. Now, even I can see, through my rose tinted lenses that Maud rides well for a little girl of ten - she has an excellent seat and beautiful hands. But just because she's a good rider is no reason to throw her up on a half mad, just out of the desert, huge horse of muscle and fire - the instructor had been lungeing it before we arrived and it still wouldn't walk forward nicely. It was a horse even I would hesitate to mount and I, in general, will ride anything.
"She's not riding that!" I said. "Where are the ponies? Where are the school horses?"
All being ridden by lesser riders.
And that's a good enough reason to give my precious daughter a fecking mad horse?
Please excuse the casual swearing but I was so incensed I was apoplectic. The only thing that happens when you ride a bad horse is you get frightened. It does not make you a better rider, I know, I was that soldier.
The lesson did not go ahead. As I told the instructor when we were leaving, "I may consider allowing Maud to have a lesson on this horse after I've watched your ten year old daughter riding him."