As some of you may know, especially if you’ve read some of my recent blog posts, The past 18 months have not been the best for me. I lost my dad to a stroke, moved to a totally new state where I knew nobody, COVID-19 struck, and more. Basically, “bad times” and I have become great buddies.
When I lost my dad, my world was turned upside down. But even though life was messy, I had one constant in my life, Carina. She was my reason to get out of bed and purpose to keep going. Despite her never knowing what was really going on, she never wavered in being my rock. Even before everything that happened, Carina afforded me many opportunities. From being my first horse I had fully on my own to successfully jumping around show courses at WEF, she is my best friend and I couldn’t imagine my days without her. Nowadays, she lives the good life hacking around eating everything in sight.
COVID hitting, coupled with lockdown, sent all plans I had into a tizzy. But after some thoughtful consideration, I decided to do a summer lease for showing to give me something to do. Cue Easton. Although he was only in my life for a short period of time, we accomplished a lot of my goals in and out the show ring. After a fall that broke my foot, my confidence over larger fences was shaken. Easton’s experience and can do attitude got me comfortable over every fence in front of us. By the end of season, we were jumping around the 1.10m like it was no big deal. He played a large part in getting me to the place I am today as a rider, and I am grateful for him helping me get to that point.
Around the same time I started leasing Easton, a little, sickly, paint pony by the name of Goose entered my life. He was a rescue from a neglect case and had one of the worst cases of summer sores that my vet had ever seen. Along with his sores, he was extremely malnourished and needed some serious groceries. In other words, Goose was the definition of hot mess express. With lots of love and time spent together, he is all healed, healthy, and happy as a clam now. Caring for him practically every day and getting to spend that time developing a relationship with him brought so much joy to my heart. And now he is my puppy dog pony, gearing up for a future kiddo that will love him as much as I do. Just recently, Goose was actual my shoulder to cry on when I suffered a really big heartbreak. He was patient & kind, not moving a muscle while I snuggled into his neck for comfort.
Finally, we come to Phim. His gentle giant self (at a whopping 18.3!) power walked his way right into the barn and my family. Being the most recent addition to my heard, I haven’t had too much go south while he’s been around, thankfully. Though, every ride we have together, he teaches me more and more about him and how much the decisions I make as a rider have an impact. So, hopefully, we don’t have any of those bad times moments to tackle together, I know that I can rely on him if the time comes.
Horses are so special and I definitely wouldn’t be the rider and person that I am today without them being a constant in my life; I genuinely wouldn’t have it any other way.
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