Day 11: Horses

Horse-riding was just one of the short-lived pursuits of my childhood. I dreamed of being a 'horse person' and fantasised about different breeds of horse carrying me over rolling landscapes. I read horse books (particularly the first in the Starlight Adventures 'Choose Your Own Adventure series', entitled Star Rider, by Carole Carreck - anyone else remember those?!) and loved the Hayley Westenra recording of The Little Horses, as well as the iconic Elton John and Luciano Pavarotti duet, 'Live Like Horses'. But horse-riding lessons were a different story. I did learn to ride a horse at a very basic level, but looked like a sack of potatoes on the back of one. Plus, my mother was so allergic that she couldn't even sit in the car to wait for our lesson to be over. So that pretty much was the end of that one. The reality is that I'm not even a terribly outdoorsy or athletic person and would always a million times rather be tucked up indoors reading! And yet I do still have incredibly peaceful memories of riding a horse while on holiday when I was 14 or so - and know people who have taken up horse-riding in their fifties to try to capture that level of calm and contentment. The Times columnist Melanie Reid, who broke her neck and back in a horse-riding accident in April 2010, still waxes lyrically and (inevitably) bittersweetly about the joy that horse-riding gave her.

So whatever your experiences of horse-riding and horses, we hope you'll be able to translate them into a poem today, in whatever form you choose.

Word prompts

lock

parade

rumble

clop

scrape

Remember, our prompts are only suggestions; you can find your inspiration wherever your muse leads you. Please visit the other participants' work, share the hashtag #OctPoWriMo on social media, and share your link in the comments below. Let us know how this journey into poetry is going for you.