OTTB Charm

Approximately a year and a half ago, I broke my pelvis. I was at a horse show, riding a horse for a local lady. There were a lot of various mistakes made by several parties (myself included) and long story short, it ended up with the horse falling down at a warmup fence. She took the pole down and all would have been fine if she was more experienced, but she was too green. She lost her footing, I jumped off, and she ended up crashing down on top of me with her left shoulder on my left hip. After being carted off in an ambulance, getting x-rays, and a whole lot of waiting, I found out I had broken my pelvis in two places. Luckily the breaks were fairly stable so I didn't need a full body cast or surgery, but it still meant I couldn't ride for a while. The fear, anger and depression that followed consumed me almost entirely. Even when I could walk and ride again, I was depressed and frustrated that I just couldn't ride the same - and maybe I never would. I was angry about t...

On my "Facebook Memories", it showed that, two years ago today, I bought Pancho. I can hardly believe it has been two years. It both feels like it was yesterday, but also like it was an eternity ago. At the time when I was offered to buy Pancho, I had been exercise riding him for about two and a half months, and had fallen in love with him. I loved his crooked blaze, and cheek "dimples", even his little white sock and stripey hoof. I loved his funny quirks, like always having to show off his teeth, needing a routine (down to the point of even being tied in the same spot), preferring to do some canter work before real trot work, and  always  taking the long spot. I fell in love with everything about Pancho. So I jumped at the opportunity when he was offered to me. So on January 4th, 2015, I bought my very first horse. Pancho was a dream come true for me. In his younger days, he had been a Prelim event horse, and regularly competitive in 3'6" show jump...

I have really been enjoying these review posts on everyone else's blog, so I figured I would jump on the bandwagon. First outside ride First jump school We kicked off the year, in January , with typical frozen ground and no riding area. So it started out with indoor flatting rides. The last week or so of January, our outdoor finally thawed enough to ride out there (yay!). We got one simple w/t/c flatwork session outside, and then our first outdoor jump school of the year! It was actually our first real jump school outside ever, since my injury forced a long delay from jumping, and by the time we started, it was too frozen to do anything outside. With February , came more thawed ground and outside rides, but a very fresh and forward pony. Around this time is when he began to learn he had this fun move called a "buck". I pushed through lots of physical issues and mental blocks and really tried to better myself as a rider, and teach...

So many things to be grateful for. Its hard to even know where to begin. Last year, the biggest thing I was thankful for was walking, being alive, and being back on a horse. After not being able to walk for a while and the knowledge that had one little thing been different in my accident, I wouldn't be alive right now, the little things that you take for granted start becoming the big things very quickly. The first day I was back on a horse was one of the best days of my life. I cried at how happy I was. I was incredibly thankful for the best baby horse around and the ability of my body to heal itself so I could be riding again. But aside from that, I was so so thankful for all of the little things in my life, like walking and breathing. This year with the memory of not being able to walk being a little more in the back of my mind, I am able to broaden a bit of the things I am thankful for: My Family My family is incredibly supportive of what I do and they have been f...