Ok, so we all know I’m a bit of a hunter snob but I think the following advice goes for any discipline. I’m not an amazing rider nor do I play one on TV, but I do know a bit about being a student of a sport. I grew up very seriously competitively figure skating, then coached figure skating all through high school, and have taken lessons and clinic with a variety of horse trainers on the east coast and here in…
That’s the best way I can describe me this past week and weekend. It’s a good thing I still have lots of photos and posts about Wellington to blog about, because otherwise I would drive all you great readers away with my negativity. Pre-Simon being very lame (still) lots of crappy stuff happened at work which I won’t get into, and then when I saw that my dear horse who has been on stall rest for three months was still…
I talk a lot on this blog about Elvis, because more than any other horse he has shaped how I am as a rider and a person today. I owned him from high school through graduating from college, and sold him to a friend in a semi-retirement situation after college to pursue a nicer show horse… a nicer show horse that I ended up hating. Parts of me still regret selling Elvis, but in the end I do think it…
Thought this strength, weakness, opportunities and threat analysis I saw over at Viva Carlos was insightful and thought provoking, so wanted to post my own here. Also, I leave for Wellington in 6 days and I’m starting to get stupid excited. More about that tomorrow. Strengths Simon is a very good minded horse Tim is very supportive My job is stable and income level lets me do more this year My barn is full of friendly, supportive people I have…
I believe I’ve mentioned before, but I ride at a pretty no thrills kind of barn. Meaning, we see a lot of white plastic schooling helmets, nylon halters decorated with glitter puff paint, and my personal favorite – a fitted zebra fleece english pad. Fitted zebra people… fitted! Really I’m fine with all this, because the ugly white helmets are safe and the tye dye polka dot polo wraps are done correctly… so who cares? I don’t care but I guess my…
It’s a rough week. I’ve got a steady headache and sore throat, but my body will neither move into full fledged sickness nor heal itself and get on with life. Also, the drama llama visited work. I hate the drama llama. Instead of whining (which I can assure you I’m doing enough of outside the blog right now), I will show you what I’d do if I had $500k just hanging out and I could quit my job today. I want…
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….
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…