I like this picture of me, share yours…

[Montanas_Girl]

Oh, gosh. I have so many! I have been blessed to have a great friend who is a professional photographer and loves my ponies almost as much as I do, so I have a large collection of very good photos of all my “kids”.

Favorite photo of me with my first horse:

With my current riding horse and best girl (special emotional note: the bracelet I’m wearing in this photo was made from the tail of my first horse, who I put down less than a week before purchasing this girl in utero):

With my broodmare (dam of my riding horse) and most recent baby princess - the picture looks super sweet, but in reality, I was clinging to the little one for all I was worth, because she wanted to bounce away and play. Lol:

With my 2021 filly, who has since been sold, but it’s such a sweet photo I’m sharing it anyways (and today is her 2nd birthday, coincidentally):

[outerbanks77]

Me and my gelding Jaguar when I was about 14 and we’d just won grand champion hunter hack at the county fair 4H show. My mom eventually did a painting of this for me, sans lady with green fanny pack.

First known photo of me on a horse in front of my dad. I don’t remember this day, but I suspect it planted the seed and hooked me for life. Not so for my brother who is on the other horse and probably has not been on a horse since.

First ride on my main mare Tesla when she was four. It took me a long time to work up to this moment since previous horse has lawn-darted me on about our third ride and turned out to be a problem bucker.

[BrookdaleBay]

When I first got Matt, I was nervous jumping thanks to a couple spills from a schoolie. After just flatting for a couple years, I found my coach through a friend and decided to give jumping a try once again. Matt is such an honest guy who knew his job and got us safely to the other side of the teeny cross rails we were jumping at the time. My confidence grew, and after a few years, we decided to enter a small combined test. I get very nervous showing, but Matt was an old pro from the hunter ring, and as my coach always told me, “trust him”, so I did, and we won the thing! this photo is after our stadium/cross country round and I don’t think I’ve been happier in my life.

[FjordBCRF]

No horse in this one but as SO says, I always have horses on the brain. I actually do like this one of me since I don’t find myself dressed up too often.

You can dress me up but…Tractor Supply was on the way.

[2bayboys]

Love the dress!!

[anon68314200]

Teaching my horse laterals in hand for the first time.

Learning to shape him at liberty

Enjoying the results undersaddle.

[appypaint]

This thread has touched me in ways I didn’t anticipate; you all are so stunning, and I can feel the JOY radiating through your photos!

@ZuzusPetals

I want to look like the riders in all the magazines, who don’t stand there and smile. They’re Going About Their Businesses Because They’re Around Horses All The Time, and one day I’ll look back at this photo (the real one is at my mother’s) and recall how I was evaluating my performance in that crucial up-down lesson.

The truth: I was absolutely giddy. I had just dismounted after an hour of walking and trotting! I had reins in my hand and I was leading a real, live horse back to the barn, where I would pick feet and groom and take off his tack all by myself!

I don’t mean to divert the purpose of this thread, but Zuzu, this is so poignant (and I still get this way at 30!)

I’m out of the horse world right now and deeply missing it. Just yesterday, on a whim, I took myself to a local dressage show just to spectate. I needed to get a horse fix There were some upper level tests, it was all VERY serious and focused… but internally I was absolutely giddy, just being in the atmosphere of horses & their people.

It has to be an addiction, the way horses demand so much of us and yet we STILL keep going back again and again

[cayuse]

Just because we’re sharing, here is my husband between classes at a fun mini show yesterday. I’m pretty proud of them both.

[Jenerationx]

@appypaint

This thread has touched me in ways I didn’t anticipate; you all are so stunning, and I can feel the JOY radiating through your photos!

SAME! I can’t make horses fit into my life right now and this place is my fix.

[ZuzusPetals]

@appypaint, when you return (and you WILL) it will be all right there waiting for you to pick up. The absence of horses for 25 years was a daily heartache, and when I returned six months ago I despaired of becoming the rider I was, of feeling my way around horses as second nature, of contributing in a small but meaningful way to the barn.

I’m still a rusty rider, slow to figure things out. But in time I’ll surpass where I was because I’m in a v different place, financially, emotionally, romantically, professionally. I’m stunned by the room to GROW at my new place, with a wonderful (and challenging — sweet baby Moses, she’s challenging) horse. I’m not merely riding again. I’m learning in so many different directions, from so many good and wise and fun people. The 16-year-old is teaching me. The 60-year-old is teaching me. The parents are teaching me. If they only knew how much they’ve helped me heal.

Gooey moment over. Carry on.

[atr]

I like this picture of us because we both look relaxed and competent…

[NaturallyHappy]

I’ve never uploaded a picture before so I’m nervous. @skydy, this is my beloved gelding who is related to @supershorty628’s Nikki.

[skydy]

Fantastic! They certainly have that excellent jump in common.

[Paint_Party]

@cayuse

here is my husband between classes at a fun mini show yesterday

What a great photo. And what a good guy. I think you found yourself a keeper.

[2DogsFarm]

@appypaint

and I still get this way at 30!)

I still get this way at almost-73!
& I hope to be the same at 103!!

[cayuse]

Thank you! He is a really good guy. He enjoys the horses as much as me and besides being a super husband, he’s a really great groom ! We will be married 40 years this Fall.

[Punkie]

Out of sheer curiosity, what is/was his/her breeding? My best friend has a Rubinstein grandson that could be your horse’s doppelgänger! .

[Punkie]

This is the first time I took my mom’s horse cross country schooling. It’s bittersweet for me as he was recently diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and our time with him is now quite limited, but getting to blast around a real cross country course with him was an incredible experience!!

[2bayboys]

I wish I knew! He was recorded as a warmblood of unknown breeding, reportedly imported from Argentina originally as a jumper.

[AwiUsdi]

This is my heart pony, early 2000s. DH was posted in Senegal, and we became members of the Cercle de l’Etrier de Dakar, a riding club. Apache (pronounced “Ahh-pash” in French) was a schoolie, and a stallion (I kid you not!!!). I could only ride once or twice a week and it took a year for us to really click. And to learn to anticipate and head off his no-warning-lightning-fast left duck-out at a fence he didn’t like. He was notorious for that, and for being lazy in general . But once we connected, we really seemed to get along.

At our last CSO together, I went up in height and amazingly, we placed 10th out of over 60 in the class! Even the announcer (head instructor) sounded amazed as he called the results . It was only because I took it slow and easy, and got lucky. I was really intimidated by the fence height at that level - 3’3 or so. I wasn’t sure if I’d made a wise decision, and my goal was just to try to finish clear, if that was even possible. Others cut corners and pushed the accelerator at every turn, and they had lots of rails. So we weren’t the fastest, but we were the 10th fastest clear on that day!

Unfortunately smartphones weren’t a thing yet, and it rarely occured to DH to take pictures , so I have no pictures of us jumping the course, just this one lousy photo he took after the results were called. The jumping pic is from a previous show. But I still remember the course… every fence, every approach, every rollback… and especially how Apache, a 14h-ish local street-cart-pony-turned-schoolie-jumper knew his job so well and did it so honestly that day, and how he took care of me for that 40 or 50 seconds that we were on course. I loved that little guy.