Last week, SprinklerBandit explained how she transitioned to an animal loving kid to a horse loving kid. When I read her post, I thought it would make a decent blog of my own until I realized something specific. I’ve never known a time in my life when I wasn’t in love with horses. This is not because I’m from an agricultural family, far from it. My dad is more likely to invest in a farm and turn it into a housing development…
October is supposed to be the best time to live in central Texas. You can expect mid 70’s to low 80’s during the day, and the nights feel like they just might be cold enough for a sweater. Everyone knows this, including Simon who is Texan born and bred. So can someone explain to me why we’re having temperatures in the mid 90’s? Saturday I went out to the barn in early afternoon to hack the pony. Right from the get…
This weekend was about the holy trinity – ponies, friends and alcohol. Sometimes these combine in amazing ways, and sometimes they leave you showing up for your Saturday morning lesson feeling less than stellar. Less than stellar for your first lesson in over a month. For your first lesson in over a month where your trainer busts out some awesome exercises, that are simultaneously super fun and ridiculously hard. I think I said at one point, “This lesson points out…
In her book, Yes Please, Amy Poehler writes about “the voice.” The voice is that nagging thing in your head who likes to look at your body and say, “No way you are good enough.” No one is totally immune to the voice. My skinny friends complain about their arms or supposed muffin tops. It’s not just women either – everyone hears the voice from time to time. You should change this. You should fix that. No way you are good…
This summer I saw a lot of other bloggers check in with their yearly goals. When I read those posts I pretty much thought, “Must be nice for SOMEONE to achieve goals this year!” Yeah, yeah yeah… I can be snippy in my mind. At first I was going to ignore my goals entirely and scratch the year off as an epic failure. As shitty years goes, it would be hard to top 2015 for me (although I’m sure you…
Alilson at Pony’Tude had a great post the other day when she posted a series of equitation photos showing her progress as a rider. Even in the early “bad” shots, I was pretty impressed. See, riding did not come naturally to me. I figured that because I read every horse book known to mankind by age nine, I would just be a natural. I thought I would speak horse! I thought I was destined to win blue ribbons at my very first…
Several people commented on my Friday & Saturday show report commending me for my good attitude. Believe me, that attitude is not my natural inclination. I’m a fiercely competitive person. I want to win. I don’t like to step foot in the ring unless I think there is a chance that I will get something in the class. While I don’t feel like I put my competitive desires ahead of my horse’s welfare, the truth of the matter is that I…
For Sunday, I decided to give myself a little more ring time by signing up for the 2’6″ Equitation medal. I had competed in this class once last year, and enjoy it because it’s the toughest course for the height at our local show series. Adding this class meant that I had to get up early on Sunday to come school in the outside ring before the show started. My trainer seemed to think that schooling the jumps would be necessary…