Today I rode with the balance and fluidity of a skydiving giraffe

[horseshorseshorseshorses]

I am part of the above group. Its lovely. I highly recommend/

Most recently I have had 3 incidents in the last 2 months that made me question why I had put so much money into my sport.

1. Went to a little pony club show. The arena was on grass and the ground got progressively more chewed up as time went on. Great! My young horse needed experience on that kind of ground. I could tell in the warm-up area he was getting more and more frazzled, did just enough to warm us up and watched a few rounds. Our first round was the definition of bad. About the 3rd jump in I tipped my shoulders at him, he put on the breaks and slid through the fence. After that, he deer jumped all but the last 3. The second round was perfect and I ended our day on that with lots of rewards.

2. During a cross country lesson that was going perfectly, we had an argument going to a novice sized house on a downhill. Somehow I got bounced out of the saddle, thought i was going to fall into the fence just as he jumped it and we both landed on the other side safely and without me lawn darting.

3. Just yesterday I was jumping him and raised all the fenced to novice height. Wide oxers are my nemesis, so logically I made one. On the approach I saw the long, he saw the short and we compromised and jumped it short. I tossed my shoulders at him, he really nailed the front rail and made it 100% clear his pilot needed to get her shit together on the backside.

[Arelle]

I won Congress unanimously, under all EIGHT judges a few years ago.

Same horse, same rider, a couple of years later during a show where we were just “off” - I came out of the ring and my trainer just said, “You looked like a 4H nightmare.”

We still laugh about it.

[tikihorse2]

Oh, how on earth did I forget?

I fell off at a STANDSTILL!!!

I had been doing no-stirrup work and halted at the end of the lesson. I was talking to someone (can you see a pattern here?) and went to dismount. Boom! The next second I was on my back like a beached turtle!