I’m going to sound incredibly ignorant here, but I honestly thought horse shopping would be fun and easy. I’ll wait for your laughter to die down before I continue. Better now? Okay, good. The first horse I bought was selected from a string of school horses that an older barn in Raleigh were liquidating. My trainer brought me over there, and I liked the first mare I sat on because she did “dressage movements” sideways that I thought felt really…
We’ve been having massive rain in Austin lately, so my lesson on Sunday was my first one since the disappointing horse show. I’d be lying if I said I was super excited to be lessoning again. My brain had already prepared itself for life with a baby hunter, and had lost a lot of my gumption for the 2’6″-2’9″ jumpers with my changeless wonder horse. My trainer had setup a mock hunter derby course to prepare for the horse show…
I was hoping to have exciting news for you today, but I’ve learned a valuable lesson – don’t write the blog post until the vetting is 100% done. That post went into the trash, and instead I feel the need to update y’all slightly since I dangled a large carrot earlier in the week and have nothing to show for it. I’m sad, because I haven’t legitimately shopped for a horse in ten years ever and I’m not used to…
“Thank you for being patient while I go through literally every horse option like a crazy person,” I told my trainer when I spoke to her on the phone Friday morning. She laughed at me. Truth is, I’ve been coming up with grand ideas for a while. Most I haven’t blogged about, though some I have. No matter what kind of crazy horse scheme I came up with, they all involved hard choices. Sometimes it’s a financial sacrifice, because I…
Ever since Tim died, I knew that I wanted to give myself some kind of physical reward for making it through this process mostly intact. I’m not above self bribery at all, and there have been many a day where I’ve woken up thinking something like, “I will get out of bed today even though I won’t want to and someday this will all be worth it.” Of course, getting up every day is worth it regardless of any happy I could…
This Thursday I am flying to North Carolina so I can gather with friends to spread Tim’s ashes in the mountains as a more final farewell. I am looking forward to this weekend like someone looks forward to their execution. I know I’ll feel better after it’s done, but I don’t want to have to be there and I don’t want to have to do this. What does that have to do with a horse show? I’ve been getting through…
My weekend of showing has come and gone. I’m sitting at home with a light sunburn, a mild headache and a lot of feels. Then again, when don’t I have a lot of feelings? When I came back from the San Antonio show in February, I was exploding with happiness and hope. My feelings as I write this blog post tonight are quite a bit more complicated and a lot less positive. I’ve decided to break up this show report into…
Well, I’ve learned my lesson – don’t brag about my horse! The day after I posted about my magical trust unicorn, we had the worst lesson we’ve had in a long time. I’m not upset over this, because we were super overdue for a bad lesson. However, I wish the bad lesson timing did not happen right before a horse show that’s a little bit of a step up for me. Goodbye new found confidence. I will miss you! The short…