I’ve been competitive my entire life. I’m not sure if the figure skating started it, or if I was drawn to figure skating because of it but I’ve never known a period of time where I didn’t want to be the absolute best at something. First it was double sow-cows and flying camels. Then it was riding horses with 4H shows and much later, IHSA equitation. When I took a break from riding during my time in MA, I turned…
When I first was thinking about show names for Simon, I kept going back to “Little Lion Man”. I didn’t settle on this because the actual song lyrics didn’t mean anything for him/me, and it had nothing to do with his barn name (I like there to be a correlation). Instead, Simon became Something So Right but I always felt like my little bay horse had a lion heart. In my world, I’m struggling a bit with Roman right now. It…
As you know, I’ve been thinking a lot about horses and horse showing lately. While a lot of this has been deep and theoretically, I have decided something concrete – I need to host a horse show. I’m thinking a low key, no thrills event with satin as long as our torsos since everything is better with amazing ribbons. Location to be determined, but I wanted to toss out my tentative divisions to y’all and get some feedback! I’m Over…
I’m not usually one to brag, but today I’m going to a little. Things are going remarkably well with my creature. We’ve hit that sweet spot in our relationship – the time period where you’ve had years of learning each other’s quirks all the while your horse has been aging and learning to become a solid citizen. I had this wave of realization when I took Simon to the San Antonio show in February that we have figured out how to…
Once upon a time, the show series I showed at the most was a huge fan of nontraditional ribbon colors. Every 1-8 had a rainbow stripe down the middle and I have some rather interesting champion ribbons from various divisions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a satin addict regardless of color so if a ribbon is big with a pretty medal medallion – I’m thrilled… even if it is orange, brown and dark red (true story). However, when it comes between…
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…
Even though I’ve always loved hunter/jumpers, it wasn’t until the last few years that I showed at “legit” hunter shows. Moving to the world of rotations and 1 million divisions under 3′ was a little confusing at first. It took a lot of hand holding by my trainer to calm my nerves and make hunter/jumper shows seem like the relaxing norm instead of a brave new world. My showing life before hunter/jumper almost entirely consisted of open shows. They are…
I am a bit of a control freak. I mean, that’s what people (aka my husband) tell me. It’s not that I have to tell everyone what to do all the time or what not, but I like to be able to fix things. I love it when a problem has a simple action plan like First A then B and finally accomplish C. Those are my favorite. Right now, I’m experiencing a huge lull in horse showing and training…