NaBloPoMo Day 08 - A little about the barn/stable you ride at

Due to past Barn-Related Internet Drama(tm), I'm going to be a little vague on full details, but we do have a barn:

And a big pasture:

An arena:

A small pasture:

*cough* And a very handsome young stallion who helpfully is illustrating all the locations...

NaBloPoMo Day 07 - Your favorite ribbon won at a show and why

HA!  This is an easy one!

I have two ribbons.  Period.  :)

So of course my favorite is the second place ribbon.  That was the first show I'd ever been to.  The barn owner didn't kill us on the way there, but... umm... lady, even as a pre-teen, I was pretty confident that no, having a horse in the trailer was not license to speed through lights that had just turned red.

But me and my noble (and bitchy) (pony) steed and I survived, and we rode our very first dressage test!  I'm pretty sure it was USDF Intro Test A - but the stable called it the Green as Grass Test A, and I could swear the words "medium walk" appear nowhere on the test.  Somewhere, I still have the test results...

That was, I should add, the day I learned what a diagonal was.  I'd been riding for over a year at that point, walk-trot-canter...

NaBloPoMo Day 06 - Your favorite tack and riding clothes you have (brand/color/other details)

I used to have dedicated riding clothes... lol These days, I tend to ride in jeans and a t-shirt.  Oh, and I have a pair of Ariats that I change into when I get to the barn.

And my favorite tack happens to be... well... my only tack (right now, anyway):

Namely, my beloved Courbette Royale there.  And yes, I have Courbette stirrup leathers... and girth... *cough* and thanks to the magic of eBay, a Courbette breastcollar and two Courbette bridles (the first was a weird Franken-size).  And they all match.  Because matching is important, okay?  lol

Hilariously, I also have a matching set of split reins that I picked up at a Tractor Supply at one point.  Apparently I can eyeball my saddle color well?

NaBloPoMo Day 05- Your first fall

Now this... this I remember.

For reasons I still don't understand, my instructor at the time threw me up on a pony that had a) flunked out of a handicapped riding program and b) had only been at the barn for like a week.

The little felon himself.  Pony is a four letter word...

And then, to make it even better, the night I rode him was the first time he'd been in the covered arena with the lights on.

If you're thinking "recipe for disaster," yes.  Yes it was.

Everything was fine until we started to canter.  He was getting a little sticky and breaking to trot when we passed the flower box sitting in the middle of the arena, so my instructor said to kick him the next time he did that.

So I did.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on my back in the dirt, staring up at the roof and wondering what had happened.

According to what I was told, the little jerk reacted to me kicking him on by spinning on a dime, pitching me off into the dirt, and took off.  My helmet hit one of the ground poles with a nice solid clunk, although I don't remember being next to a ground pole when I realized I was lying in the dirt.  I didn't have a concussion or anything; I just legitimately do not remember the time between "kicking the pony" and "why am I in the dirt?"  (Not the only fall where I've had that happen, and the others definitely did not involve hitting my helmet on anything.)

And yes, I got back on.  Granted it was after a cry in the bathroom and like ten minutes of getting the pounds of dirt out of my clothing... lol

NaBloPoMo Day 04- A ride that impacted your life

You know, I can't actually point to a single ride.

Sure, I could probably say, "Oh, the first time I rode," or "The first time I rode at my current barn," but they're not these hugely striking rides.

Instead, I think of things like the time where I finally convinced myself to canter again, which I can't point to a single ride where that happened.  I had lost a ridiculous amount of confidence, and then gained a lot of it back.  And at some point, my college-age self looked at the teenagers around me and started thinking, "What the fuck.  They can all canter.  Why can I not canter?  I've been riding longer than any of them."  And a few weeks later, I finally cantered again - for the first time in like five years.

In the absence of riding photos, which I have very few of, have a shot of one of the two worst pieces of equine artwork I own.  I've lovingly dubbed it the Viagra Unicorn.

NaBloPoMo Day 03- Your best riding

In terms of competition, I don't have much to point to.  In terms of weird, random stuff that I'm proud of?

Still having a good seat after 4 years of not riding.

Not falling off when a 6hh Percheron stopped paying attention to her feet and face-planted.

And the biggest of all: still riding after several huge losses of confidence over the years.

NaBloPoMo Day 02- The last time you rode a horse and what you did

Ouch.  Umm... *whispers* 2014?

There was barn drama, major epic barn drama, and the only horses trained for riding either were sold or - in one memorable case - got injured in a freak accident.  And then when I did buy my own horse(s)... well, genius me, nobody's trained for saddle.  So it's... umm... it's been a while.

Shh.  Pretend you never saw that. Be distracted by a picture of Justice's daddy.