Day 15- If you could speak to any horse, dead or alive, what would you say?

Hmm this is an interesting question. If I could speak to any horse dead or alive, I would choose two - Shadow, the horse that helped me gain my confidence after a fall that made me not want to do anything more than a trot and Secretariat for being such an amazing creature.

I would first thank Shadow for everything he restored in me & for the patience he had along the way throughout the ruts I got stuck in. To Secretariat, I don’t even know if I would say anything. I would love just to have been able to be close to him or to give him a pat to show how admired he still is in the horse world for his athletic capabilities and huge heart.

Day 14- Your dream barn/farm

Dream barn?

• In a beautiful valley somewhere in Ireland
• Indoor and outdoor riding ring
• Beautiful, quaint barn
• A few horses and ponies
• Tons and tons of beautiful pastures to go riding in

Yep, that’s what it would be.

Day 13- A video of your worst riding

Hmm..probably this little number - very last clip of my riding, I’m on the wrong diagonal, my hands are resting too far on his neck… plus it’s one of the few riding videos I have access too since my old computer crashed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCX-YL2aqsM&feature=g-upl

Day 12- Favorite horse color

It’s definitely a tie between either a bay with a white blaze & black mane and tail or a dapple grey. Yep, those are my two favorite horse colors ;p

Day 11- Find a horse for sale online that you would want to buy

Wow, this is easy. I found him on YouTube…no idea if he’s sold or not, but I would buy him in a heart beat if he was in the same country. And if I wasn’t broke…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7yYc4z0k1A

Day 10- How your family/friends feel about your riding

Both my family and friends are completely supportive! It was my parents who first pursued my love for horses from the moment I first found interest in them in preschool. They signed me up for horse classes then riding lessons and have been supportive of me ever since, driving me to horse shows, riding lessons, and tack shops. Both my friends & family have always known me as “the horse girl”.

Day 09- Any injuries that occurred from riding

None too serious thankfully. The worst was probably my bruised tailbone when I fell off when the horse I rode began to canter from a walk, I didn’t have stirrups, panicked, and lost my seat. The fall apparently was textbook since I rolled off well but my ass hurt for a long long time to the point where I could hardly sit!

Ooops…kinda forgot about this for a little bit…I think I was at day 8? Well..now I am…

Day 08- A little about the barn/stable you ride at
Okay well I’m at Legacy Farm LLC, a beautiful farm set in the rolling hills of suburban Pennsylvania…haha. We have an indoor and an outdoor ring, 3 main pastures (one strictly for lesson horses) and turn out paddocks. There is a main barn then 4 sets of row stalls outside. Most of the horses are borders and re-sale horses that are being trained to sell as champion show horses. Most riders at my barn are hunters or jumpers and compete in shows all along the east coast including Florida. Some of the horses are imports from Europe; Zeus from Ireland, Sting from Scandinavia, Frank from Germany, Marley from Ireland just to name a few. All of the horses (minus one) are really sweet and the people are great! It’s a great place to be.

Your first fall

I think I was about 6 when I had my first fall off a horse. I had been riding at a barn off-and-on near my house. The woman who owned the barn had her 16 or 17 year old daughter teach me how to ride (which would soon totally backfire). Anyways, I was riding a little bay pony named Shimmy and her daughter decided that her and her friend were going to go across the street in the pasture they owned and play around or whatever. So they left me in the ring by myself, told me to just walk, which I did. Don’t know what made the little mare canter, but she did and I fell right off onto my bum. I was alright, but talk about irresponsibility.

Needless to say, that was my last ride at that barn.

A ride that impacted your life

Immediatley I think about the time I jumped after being in a rut for nearly a whole year. At the barn that I am going to returning to soon, I had a pretty nerve-wracking fall off of one of the lesson horses. Luckily I was alright, and I did get back in the saddle, but for pretty much the rest of the year I was shaken. I had fallen off at the canter so I was petrified for awhile to go past a trot (at first it was so bad I wouldn’t even trot off the lunge line). My trainer must’ve seen how frustrated I was getting with myself because one lesson, a year after the fall, she put me on my favorite horse Justin and had me trot over a cross rail. Little did I know, she knew that Justin was going to jump it, so as I approached the rails she had me get up into 2-point, and sure enough..he jumped right over it. As soon as he lifted off I knew what he and I were doing, and after the jump we cantered half the ring! I was so proud of him and myself I started crying like the sap I am. I’ll never forget that ride because it helped push me past a road bump and showed me I was capable of riding with confidence again.