Let me start off by saying that whatever shortcomings my barn has (as all barns do!), I’ve never been around a group of nicer people. The silver lining to Simon being hurt right now is the incredibly generous people who are letting me ride their horse. Lately I’ve been able to ride Viper (who will get his own post later) and last night one of the good teenage riders offered her appendix mare, Joy, for me to jump around on….
My dad was visiting this weekend, so while I didn’t spend much time at the barn riding (although he did come meet Simon) there was one very horsey activity we went to – Rodeo Austin. Every March, hipsters get excited for South by Southwest and horse loving Austinites get excited for Rodeo Austin. My experience with rodeo in North Carolina is slim. I went to a rodeo at the Raleigh fairgrounds once, and remember it had about 5 barrel racers…
And now for the long awaited epic conclusion of my first major horse show as well as the show that made me scared of showing (almost) forever. As the record states, after doing remarkably well in mare halter I had managed to make poor riding decisions in hunter hack and gone off course in hunter over fences. All that were left were Hunter GAYP (Go as You Please) and Hunter Under Saddle. Easy peasy…. not really. If you have not…
Another crazy day at work, but that’s the norm lately. While browsing on Facebook on my commute in (only in heavy traffic or a red light of course!), this story on the world’s oldest horse caught my eye. Shayne, a 51 year old Irish Draught/Thoroughbred cross, was put to sleep after he couldn’t get up in late feb. I love this story. It’s not because the horse was really old (because he is), but that he was cared for well…
The story so far: little Lauren and Lydia get a 3rd in Mare halter because they copied showmanship skills from another girl in the class. Little Lauren and Lydia then get called back in the hunter hack class, but Lauren makes an ass of herself by riding poorly… a trend that will continue. Now let me tell you a little bit about myself: I was probably at least 20-21 years old before I made it through a horse show without…
I don’t think it takes a genius to know that I’ve had a pretty severe case of the blahs lately. Stress at work, broken pony, getting rodents out of my house and trying to get more financially stable have all left me feeling drained and longing to be back in college in my undergrad years where bills weren’t a problem and I had at least 4 hours a day to spend at the barn. But that’s whiny fail speak, and…
When we last left 14 y/o me, I was high on horse show success from copying a girl from a lesson factory barn and thus winning a yellow ribbon in mare halter – rock on me! This taught me a valuable terrible lesson early on in my show career – you should change your tactic at the horse show right before or in the middle of your class. New skills and horse training can be done in the middle of…