"I would be completely and utterly astonished if you did let me take them out without observing me," he answered promptly, so perhaps that, too, would make a positive impression; he was more concerned with setting her mind at ease.
He wanted – no, needed – to know that she would stick around long enough for him to figure out what it was about her that had that little piece of the back of his mind running around in circles and screaming and waving its metaphorical arms around, cartwheeling, trying to catch his attention; disgusting her with poor manners in her stable would guarantee that she be rid of him for good, and he simply couldn't have that.
"I have to confess, I ended up entirely convinced that I'd lost my riding boots." He smiled, wryly, and – to be sure – he wasn't wearing them, but rather the very old, greyed, beaten-to-hell, exceptionally comfortable combat boots that had, once upon a time, been the very first pair of boots in his stage costume. "Imagine my surprise and pleasure to realise they were in the boot of my car the whole time – but that's not, remotely, to say that I expect to be allowed upon a horse at all tonight. I don't, honestly, know that you have any here who'd suit me, either."
Not that he really doubted she did, at least for the purpose of getting him used to riding again! But again: not what one said.
(He'd never realised, when railing against what teenaged-he saw as the stupidity of stable etiquette, how damnably useful it would all prove, someday. He resolved forthwith to send apology cards, not simply to Tyra and the stablemaster, but also to as many of the stablehands as he could remember, tomorrow at the latest.)