Showing up for my lesson last Sunday I was feeling drained from being sick (breathing is a key element of riding apparently) and insecure in my new saddle. If given the choice I probably would have been cantering cross rails and leaving after thirty minutes. Of course my trainer being my awesome trainer gave me a “No, you are crazy” look and set the jumps up 2’3″ – 2’6″. I have to admit, the more I ride in my…
I think part of it is the winter, part of it is Simon being NQR for a few weeks and a huge part of it is my whole saddle debacle plus all the dog and personal life drama… but honestly I’ve felt a bit like a deflated balloon for 2014 so far. When I wrote these goals at the end of last year, I was on a showing high. Now I’ve had a lot of financial setbacks and some mental…
I haven’t done a questionnaire thing in a while, so thought I would give this one a try for a rainy day. Taken from Equestrian at Hart who got it from The Daily Horse. 1) What discipline do you ride? Hunter/jumpers, primarily hunters right now but I’m hoping to be able to play in all 3 rings (hunter, jumper and equitation) this year. 2) If you had to switch your discipline which one would you choose? If I kept Simon and had…
Even though I decided to cancel my plans to show in March, I’m a horse show addict and I usually can’t stay away. I headed out early to watch our hunters go, planning to ride Simon during lunch before the jumpers and then come back to the horse show to watch and photograph the jumpers in the afternoon. Of course, we know how horse show schedules go and I ended up staying all day and getting properly sunburnt. The morning…
Saturday was the first 100% stress free day I’d had in quite a while, so I celebrated by spending all day outside with ponies and my camera. If that doesn’t lift one’s spirits… I don’t know what will! Since several riders at our barn are getting ready for the early March hunter derby and I’m working towards the late April one, our trainer has done a great job doing “derby lessons” that offer more challenging courses than the typical outside…
See my “2014 Show Schedule” in the right hand side bar of my blog? Get a good look at it, because I’ll be taking it down in a few days. Why? Because at this point it’s kind of a joke and extremely inaccurate. I’ve officially shifted my mindset from “We will show all the shows!” to “We will show when it seems fun and financially feasible.” I bring this up, because I made the decision this week to skip all…
I’ve seen different posts on blogs throughout the past year where people had a negative experience with IHSA, which is the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association. Reading those posts always made me a little sad, because I absolutely would not be the rider I am today without participating in this program. Instead of being bummed, I decided to write about it… and here we are at today’s post. Disclaimer: I’m writing from my personal experiences only, and I stopped riding IHSA…
I kept a bit quiet about it beforehand, but Simon and I went adventuring to a small hunter/jumper schooling show with Jen and Paddington Bear this past Saturday. I’ll be 100% honest and partially wanted to go because I figured it would be a small show and we could win pretty ribbons. Yup, I’m vain and shallow at times… sue me! 🙂 Because I had this thought there ended up being tons of kiddos in our division, go figure! Of…