I think we should give her a break.
:sadsmile:
OP sounds like she is serious about progressing and she has a lame horse that she is taking care of. She’s young, she has parents and grandparents helping her out. She is already learning from COTH advice and I for one am giving her the benefit of the doubt.
Love that she is eager to learn and working with what sounds like a good trainer.
You may be right WD. But it’s a little tough to swallow a story where someone is asking for handouts on one end and advice for buying a new horse on the other.
Taken out of context? Maybe. But I really doubt anyone “forced” the OP to start a fundraising campaign.
She sounds motivated to learn and work, that’s a great start. Owning another horse is probably best put off until she can assume financial responsibility. No one should go into ownership thinking it will be a vet/injury/illness free endeavor.
OP, I wish u luck. Eventing is an absolute blast and it sounds like you are with the right people to learn. I would really encourage you to take lessons for the next year before trying to buy anything. The horse that’s right for you today will likely not be the right horse a year from now when you have advanced your skill levels some.
[QUOTE=ACMEeventing;7261538]
You may be right WD. But it’s a little tough to swallow a story where someone is asking for handouts on one end and advice for buying a new horse on the other.
Taken out of context? Maybe. But I really doubt anyone “forced” the OP to start a fundraising campaign.
She sounds motivated to learn and work, that’s a great start. Owning another horse is probably best put off until she can assume financial responsibility. No one should go into ownership thinking it will be a vet/injury/illness free endeavor.
OP, I wish u luck. Eventing is an absolute blast and it sounds like you are with the right people to learn. I would really encourage you to take lessons for the next year before trying to buy anything. The horse that’s right for you today will likely not be the right horse a year from now when you have advanced your skill levels some.[/QUOTE]
:yes:
[QUOTE=ACMEeventing;7261538]
You may be right WD. But it’s a little tough to swallow a story where someone is asking for handouts on one end and advice for buying a new horse on the other.
Taken out of context? Maybe. But I really doubt anyone “forced” the OP to start a fundraising campaign.
She sounds motivated to learn and work, that’s a great start. Owning another horse is probably best put off until she can assume financial responsibility. No one should go into ownership thinking it will be a vet/injury/illness free endeavor.
OP, I wish u luck. Eventing is an absolute blast and it sounds like you are with the right people to learn. I would really encourage you to take lessons for the next year before trying to buy anything. The horse that’s right for you today will likely not be the right horse a year from now when you have advanced your skill levels some.[/QUOTE]
ACME, you may be right but I don’t think we need to drive her away just yet. There are a ton of people asking for money on GoFundMe, and some are downright annoying. And if the OP really doesn’t think she needs the site, then she can cancel it any time. Looks like she has had little luck this far, with two donations and one of those being her dad.
If she’s got family footing the bills, why not get the horse? Doesn’t sound like any harm will come of it. And she does have a plan for regular lessons etc.
I realize this is now completely off track, and perhaps I’m a tad curmudgeonly, but it is just a personal peeve of mine. Maybe I’m over sensitive because I did not have parents footing my bills to ride, I don’t know. I was the typical “do any chore required for time on a horse” kind of kid. Moments in the saddle were an earned luxury, not a right of existence.
So, yes, I do have a problem with starting an Internet fundraiser asking strangers to treat my horse’s arthritis while letting mom and dad pay for a new mount. And I understand the “but I’m in school so I don’t have any money” situation. Sometimes work comes first and play comes after.
I don’t think any of us are trying to drive her away, though. In fact most everyone (including myself) is encouraging her to get involved, it’s a great sport. Doesn’t mean she has to buy a new horse while in financial limbo. Heck, she could spend the next 6 months auditing, volunteering, helping at this 4* riders barn and learn LOADS about eventing without spending a penny.
I think that’s about the best advice she could have.
Sorry if that’s harsh. Actually, not really.
^^ yep! ACME, I hear you. I’ve never been handed anything horse related except when I got my very first pony. I was 7 and pony was an unbroke 3 year old Welsh Mtn Pony. Maybe that’s why I’m just now doing FEI events at a “ripe” age.
But I see so many who get advantages I didn’t have. I’m envious of the 13 year old who is getting my uber awesome young horse, shipping from Virginia to California this week. Wish I were her…
I have to admit, it annoys the Cripe out of me that OP has the GoFundMe page. OP: take it down, please… It only serves tp make you look leach-like and if your family wants to donate, let them do so directly and not fork over 10%. You dad just handed GoFundMe $10.
Ringing in as a less experienced eventer here, but I am a college prof and being a part of a young person’s journey is one of my great joys in life.
OP, I agree that people should give you a break, but as a starter and trainer of young humans, I can tell you that “a break” = telling you to take a deep breath, get some of your other obligations out of the way, and take advantage of some of the abundant riding opportunities available in MD. Then move to horse purchase.
Since you don’t yet have a firm grounding in dressage you are best off focusing on that piece. Once you get a bit ahead of where you are, you will be qualified to ride a much larger range of available horses, including the ones that are more affordable because they are green.
You will know if you are someone who does best with a “kick ride” or someone who, like me, is best off with a hotter, more fuel-injected horse whose energy the rider must “shape.”
You have many items on your task list to keep you busy, happy and fulfilled. And since you’re becoming the adult who will be in charge of much more of this in the near future, it’s a great time to work on the adult skills of setting and maintaining a budget and schedule for which you’re responsible.
Is Rilke wrote:
You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. - See more at: http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=747#sthash.neZ7Cgum.dpuf
Anything that’s a good idea now will be a good idea in a year. Probably an even better idea.
^^^ I always like what you say… :love-struck::applause::love-struck:
[QUOTE=Winding Down;7262753]
^^^ I always like what you say… :love-struck::applause::love-struck:[/QUOTE]
+1
And WD, you’re still my hero. I want to ride the red letters some day. Hell, the green ones just now stopped scaring the sh*t out of me!
(and I’m 47 in a week, so I’ll be “ripe” as well :winkgrin: )
[QUOTE=ACMEeventing;7262803]
+1
…
(and I’m 47 in a week, so I’ll be “ripe” as well :winkgrin: )[/QUOTE]
Really? I had no idea you were so old.
My goal is to do a CCI*** by the time I’m 60. I will be 58 in May and my goal for 2014 is the Fair Hill **. It was my goal for this year and we were qualified but I did not feel ready. Better safe than sorry.
Winding down ever so slowly and putting up a fight all way to the bottom…
You may be winding down vvvv, but be assured it’s uphill work, all the way. :lol: :lol:
And, having a little trouble sympathizing with the OP, who if she really wants to learn about contact, etc. needs to get herself to a dressage trainer, who will teach her where her hands and body need to be. I hear some of them even take working students. 
[QUOTE=ACMEeventing;7262803]
+1
And WD, you’re still my hero. I want to ride the red letters some day. Hell, the green ones just now stopped scaring the sh*t out of me!
(and I’m 47 in a week, so I’ll be “ripe” as well :winkgrin: )[/QUOTE]
What ACME said!
About WD being a hero, I mean. I am still on the pink numbers with the Care Bears on them.
Bahaha! Spit my protein shake right out my nose! Care Bears!
[QUOTE=merrygoround;7262956]
needs to get herself to a dressage trainer, who will teach her where her hands and body need to be. I hear some of them even take working students. ;)[/QUOTE]
Its definitely figuring out the where-to-be of it all that is the key. I transitioned to eventing from h/j after college. I was horseless at the time and spent a priceless year taking dressage lessons on an old master who taught me more than I thought there was to learn-- and even then, I only brushed the surface of where all my body parts should go. It was never a matter of whether the horse was “accepting contact”-- that’s really putting a lot of blame on the horse. The horse is accepting what you give him… Your thighs can be working at him all day, but if your hips aren’t open enough and this and that and the other body part that you never knew existed aren’t just in the right place with the right amount of tension/loosness, then you didn’t really ask the horse for contact… So what’s he supposed to accept? Anyway,halfway through that hear, I did get the opportunity to buy my amazing mare, and I kept her at home and hacked and did a little jumping until I felt like I had the hang of dressage enough to start taking my lessons on her. It wouldn’t have been fair for me to ask her to magically respond to cues I didn’t know how to give and she didn’t know how to take. But then we progressed quite nicely when the time was right. OK, well, I do still turn into an absolute lump of potatoes whenever I am doing an actual test in front of an actual judge… I do feel like I need to send flowers to the judge that had to suffer through my test last weekend… But we’re all a work in progress.
So don’t take the time to learn how to ‘make him accept contact.’ Take the time to completely relearn your seat and legs and unlock those hips to make room for the horse to step up from behind. Go get on a lunge line on a schoolmaster or at least something with a kind heart, because you’ve likely got a lot of years of riding to unlearn before you can speak dressage, especially to a green horse… I know I did!
I transitioned from h/j land after not riding for 10 years. I got tenure at MSU and bought a young tb filly, unbroke, within weeks. She wasn’t suitable so I sold her and bought an ottb who I retrained etc and started eventing about 18 mths later. We learned together and I was blessed with a ridiculously talented horse. He was also tough to ride so I learned a lot. We were at prelim and above 3 years later, going strong. Sold him for $$$$$$ and went on to many others.
So I skipped the learning from a schoolmaster and going horseless. Totally entered into eventing with both eyes wide open with delight. I was also financially secure and my career was established.
But getting back into horses led me to quit my job and move back to Virginia, and I still make a lot less than I did back in 1998.
So that’s probably why I see nothing wrong with the OP going out and buying a green horse and learning from there. That’s what I did. And I am still alive and kicking, lol.
But still… Ultimately,
After all this rambling, I will say that my advice is to lease an older been there done that and go from there. That’s what works for the majority of people. I had huge experience as a junior and young rider, having started many many babies, and foxhunting from age 7 to 18. So my personal experience may not be relevant. Still, if she must get a green horse, she is going about it in the right way, working with a good trainer with regular instruction,
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