What Christmas Means to Me...

BGA Ambassador Lucy Blain, also known for her cromwellandlucy blogs on what Christmas means to her.

People often say they felt sorry for grooms over Christmas. I’d always get the sympathetic head tilt and hand on the shoulder, as these people knew that Christmas Day (along with every other holiday) doesn’t mean anything for a groom.

Grooms are the Cinderella’s of the horse world and Christmas is certainly brings no exception to this title.

As everyone is out shopping and spending time with their loved ones, we are mucking out, washing legs and searching for thrown shoes in the pitch black, wondering why we made the life choices we did.

As I became a more seasoned groom, December was always a blur. I’d still be catching up on sleep after a manic season eventing and would be getting twitchy looking at the event horses who were resembling small mammoths wearing their winter woollies.

In between scrubbing legs and attempting to brush dried mud out of manes without getting any in my eyes/mouth (a notable talent I feel!), I’d be making mad dashes into town for late night shopping wearing jodhpurs and wellies in the hope that inspiration would hit me as soon as I walked into a shop… it never happened.

My family didn’t see me for 8 months of the year whilst we were out eventing, so surely me being at home for Christmas constituted a pretty good present!?

Christmas is about spending time with people you love, and I always extended that too animals too.

I’d always roll my eyes as I looked at the blank space on the yard rota for 25th December, along with a host of ‘’sorry I can’t work, I’m doing family stuff’’ texts in my phone.

I never minded, I loved seeing all the horse’s happy little faces on Christmas morning, plus you got to raid the presents from the clients first which I always found to be a huge upside to working on the big day. 

I would always be the first to chalk my name up to work Christmas Day.

I loved working on the only day of the year that you could get peace and quiet on the yard – no clients to keep happy by chatting for an hour when you had hours’ worth of work to do, no staff complaining that they were cold when they had chosen an OUTDOOR job (the logic!?), no horses in the wrong stables or wearing the wrong rugs…just lovely peace and quiet accompanied by the sound of happy horses munching hay. Bliss.

Working over the Christmas period can be hard, when staff numbers deplete rapidly and it feels like everyone else is on holiday apart from you, but working with horses is so much more than a job. It’s a vocation, a lifestyle that we commit too when we decide to dedicate our days to these animals.

I always go to bed on Christmas Day knowing that, even though it’s tough and there are days that you really want to cry (and days that you really do cry), you have one of the most fulfilling jobs in the world.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Lucy x

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