I am a closet sim horse game player. There, I said it. The weight of years of hiding behind my fake cyber ponies has been unlifted! Really I should say I’m a former sim horse game player, because I don’t exactly have time for such things at the moment but I will tell you one thing: I owe my career to these games. That may sound drastic, but it’s true. I went to college for English Education (high school teaching), and I…
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…
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…
I started taking riding lessons in someone’s back yard when I was 10 years old. For a backyard barn, it was a great one with a grass ring and good horses. My trainer’s main focus was fox hunting, and while I learned so much about good horsemanship in general – equitation and the finer points of showing hunter/jumpers were not on the radar for my early equine education. I don’t remember anything about my first horse show except that it…
I don’t know why, but the idea of a seasonally appropriate front porch is super thrilling to me. There’s no real reason for this. I don’t think anyone has ever driven by the front of my house and said, “Goodness! There is no seasonal wreath… how will I know if it is actually fall or spring right now? The horror!” Passers by might not do that, but I sure do. During spring and summer I lose some of the gusto…