OTTB Charm

One of the things I really value in a horse is their ability to be lazy. You know, on those days when you go to the barn and it is well over 100 degrees and it is honestly just too horrifically hot outside to even think about tacking up. Or the days where it is in the teens or single digit degrees, and you can barely feel your fingers so holding the reins like a proper rider is simply out of the question . Ignore the helmet-less-ness Well I have a lot of those days. But I usually still kind of want to ride on those days (still unsure of why exactly), but the thought of a real ride is just simply not going to happen. I love a horse that I can hop on, bareback in a halter (without even tying the lead rope like reins sometimes!), and just wander around together a little bit. Charmer is only at a stage where we can walk and do brief sections of trot in a halter, but honestly, I'm fine with that. He still is willing to put up with me at the walk and trot on those days where...

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...

The other day, I worked on creating our 2017 Goals . One of those goals for me is to get Charmer to be a nice horse, while bridleless, at the walk, trot and canter. Good ol' bridleless fun with Pancho I am a firm believer that you always need to find something fun to do with your horse in order to break up the monotony of consistently practicing for your sport, or you and your horse will both get burned out or bored. For a lot of people, that takes the shape of trail riding. That one time I took Charmer on a trail ride For me, trail rides are definitely not my idea of fun. Too much space, and I overthink the things that could go wrong. I am not one of the people that can calmly drop the buckle and let my horse wander around on a loose rein on a trail ride. I have done it before with certain horses, but on Charmer. They are no fun. Do not be fooled by the smile Especially because Charmer also does not  enjoy trail rides. He gets overwhelmed by the amount of...

Okay so this is a better review of my lesson the other day without me being entirely focused on the few minutes of galloping racehorse I had. And giving myself a little more of a break than I was giving myself the other day. Because we actually did get a lot of great work done in our lesson. To understand why I was so proud of how this lesson went, I've gotta give you a little recap of our first lesson from 4 months ago. Really pushing him out with that inside leg So this is in my last lesson. On the flat, my trainer told me to have him consistently bent around my inside leg, and he needed to be on a 3 track, because any time I stopped the bend, he either started bucking or running. Every. Single. Time. Constant bend We had a good ride if he was three-tracking. But every time I would ask him to two-track, it didn't end well. Not my finest moment This is him deciding whether to buck or run. Tough decisions. But in this lesson, we graduated to straigh...

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)....

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...