OTTB Charm

 Well. I fell off the grid for like 4 whole months. Whoops. The sad part? Basically nothing all that exciting has happened in FOUR MONTHS. I'm dying y'all. Okay, technically a few semi-fun things have happened, but it has seriously been the dumbest freaking end of fall/winter ever.  Like the day after Christmas, we got snow...and then more...and then more. For reference, I live in the Boise area in Idaho, where yes, we do get snow, but like...a couple inches at a time max , and it usually melts within a few days. And this time, we seriously got probably 8"+ in the span of like 36 hours. Which was so prettty . For like a moment. But now it is freakin February 1st, and I STILL HAVE 2" OF SNOW IN MY ARENA . Because we basically haven't gotten above like 38* since it snowed, which hasn't allowed anything to fully thaw out. Soooo, I haven't ridden since sometime in December. And I'm big-time cranky about it (sorry to literally anyone who has to talk to me b...

This is probably a theme among a lot of horse people right now - the daylight savings time/winter struggle. The cold weather & short daylight hours are brutal when it comes to doing horse stuff. Trying to squeeze in a ride in the short time after work or just accepting your fate that it just won't happen any days you work. Lately, I find myself struggling with this adjustment more than normal. I feel more unmotivated in my riding life, and it takes a lot of effort to convince myself to rush outside right after I get home from work in order to fit in a ride after an already long, tiring day. My nostalgia is at an all time high though lately. Memories on Facebook and Instagram are reminding me of when I first began getting back to regular lessons 3 years ago. Memories of the first ride where Banner finally got it  over a jump last year. It makes me sad that even though my horses are the most accessible that they have ever been to me by a long shot , my motivation to d...

For anyone that follows me on Instagram, they probably have already seen this, but unfortunately my farrier passed away suddenly last weekend. Needless to say, I am utterly devastated . I don't have really any great photos of my farrier, but he was one of the kindest people that I have ever met. Someone said it well on his Facebook page, "Mike never met a stranger". And he really didn't! He was the guy that would walk up to your first appointment and just start chatting with you like you'd been friends for years. I know that because that is exactly what he did at my first appointment with him. Mike always walked up with a twinkle in his eye, a never ending smile, and a skip in his step. His joy was infectious & his laughter filled the room. Charmer has typical, crappy thoroughbred feet and Mike always kept him wonderfully sound. Mike looked like the very typical old cowboy when he walked up and he always had this gentle, confident way about him. He...

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...

After two weeks of absolute magic in our lessons, I knew I couldn't expect it to last forever. Our lesson this weekend ended up being a little less magical-unicorns-dancing-on-rainbows-with-sunshine-and-happiness and a little more remember-that-your-horse-is-a-seven-year-old-OTTB-who-is-still-green-and-just-learned-how-to-pick-up-his-feet. We warmed up fairly well at a decent w/t/c. Our canter work is definitely wayyy better in these last few weeks (yay!). We did some 20m circle work over a couple of poles w/t/c and she brought up the same point that she has for the last couple weeks - I'm too nice. I tend to be too giving with the reins and don't give him the poke in the belly when he is falling in. I need to work on being a little more assertive and a little less "nice". As soon as we started jumping it went a little downhill. For some reason I was just casually looking down at the jump. Couldn't tell you why. So of course that made Charmer nervous...

There is a question that I saw floating around on a few other blogs and it provoked a lot of thought in me. Would you say you are a more nervous rider or confident rider? Would've been an easy question for this girl When answering this question, I wish that the girl in the above picture could have answered this question. Novice derby XC The size of jumps did not get to me in the past. I remember walking a Novice course with Training jumps next to it, and thinking the Training jumps looked totally doable and more fun than the lame Novice jumps I was doing! The old me would have answered this question with absolutely zero hesitation. Confident. Duh.  I had very little fear. Once in a while, doing something for the first time, I would have a moment of hesitation, but it was never more than a moment, and it never stopped me. I would just plow through, and do whatever scared me, and guess what? I didn't die, and it was usually very fun. And then I w...

I have a tendency to ride how I expect my horse to be. Sometimes that means I ride super defensively because I am expecting to be riding a rocketship, and I end up having a quiet, controlled horse. But I don't adjust my riding accordingly. Other times, I am coming out expecting the actual broke horse that I know he can be, and I get a very unfortunate surprise. This would be the broke horse, that I like to ride. He is the one that I can send forward and bring back and I can jump. This is the horse that I was expecting in my lesson today. I got him for maybe 30% of the ride, when I expected 70% of the ride to be riding a broke horse.  Needless to say I was a little unpleasantly surprised when I got this instead:  I came out expecting to ride my fairly broke horse and get some serious tips on my own riding (because I need it). Well my baby ex-racehorse decided he didn't want to be an ex-racehorse anymore. And after one of the jumps (a freaking crossrail no less)....