Hi friends! Welcome back to another post!
I’ve done quite a few posts on information about real horses and tips so far.
Today I thought I’d share some of my horse journey over the years. Hopefully you’ll get to know me a little better in the process. I hope you enjoy!
So let’s start at the beginning. The very beginning I suppose. I have loved horses all my life. I don’t remember ever not liking them so I guess I was just born with a passion of horses.
We lived in Madison WI. which unfortunately had very little options to do anything with horses. The options that were there seemed to cost a fortune so riding and horses just in general just wasn’t in the cards for that time in my life. I kept busy but whenever I did have the opportunity to see horses I loved every second of it… as you can see below!
When I was about 8 years old I was so blessed to have the opportunity to get to know our very dear friend, Cheri. She’s a speaker and author and she is fanatic about horses. She does the morning chores at an Andalusian boarding stables every single morning. She so graciously offered my family and I the chance to come and shadow her for a morning. She also gave me the opportunity to ride one of the boarder’s horses.
Our first trip down the whole family went but after that we made it an annual trip with my mom and I. It was something I really looked forward to every year, helping her feed the horses, let them out into the pasture and muck out their stalls. Usually I got to ride the night before and we’d sleep over at her house to do the chores the next morning. The past time my sister Ro came with us as well.
She is such a supportive friend and a joy to be around and I’m so grateful to have had that time with her. She’s also taught me a lot about being firm and standing up to the horses when they’re walking over us. There was a stallion at that barn, Desperado, that she said has taught her a lot about standing up to bullies. It’s amazing how us- a little human person can stand up to a 1,200 pound animal. She absolutely loves those horses and I always look forward to our morning at the barn. ☀️
I even got to ride that stallion on the lounge line one of the last times I was there! 🙂
So almost two years ago we moved to our final destination… Sheboygan WI. ❤️
We found a horse rescue sanctuary close by, so I decided to email them! Their volunteer coordinator met up with us to train us on how to volunteer there. She and her family have actually become great friends of ours! Anyway, we started volunteering there and going out whenever we want, about weekly for a while. It’s a little silly looking back on it, we (my mom and I, sometimes my sister would come though as well) were so completely new to horses it took a little to even be in the same pen as them. There were a few horses there that were high spirited and very enthusiastic whenever anybody would come to muck out their paddock. We gradually warmed up to going in those paddocks. 😉
We enjoyed those peaceful afternoons out in the pastures, grooming the horses and cleaning out their pens. That gave me a lot of confidence on how to be around horses.It sounds silly but they’re intimidating when you first start out! There were some horses that, not gonna lie, sort of scared my mom and I 😂. They weren’t dangerous, just overly excited!
It was then that I started looking around for places to take riding lessons. We found a barn FIVE minutes from our house. You can’t get much better then that! That’s when I started taking lessons at Grandview Farm. <3
My riding instructor, Heather then let me shadow her a few times in her morning feeding and chores. It wasn’t too far after that I started doing that myself and now I get paid to feed all (10) horses two mornings a week. Talk about a dream come true!
Man, has that been a good experience. Not only has it helped me feel like I knew more about what was going on at the barn and gave me the chance to get to know all the individual horses and their personalities more, but it gave me so much confidence. This guy up there is Monte. He’s an off the track Thoroughbred and last winter he had to be fed inside (he does now too). Just that simple act of leading him in and out of the barn required a lot of grit because he got good and dragging me around. 😉 He’s by far the tallest horse at the barn and I had to start standing up to him, just like Cheri did to Desperado.
At the start of the year I got the chance to join Pony Club. Our club is called Dune Riders Pony Club and Heather my instructor was the leader of it this year. I took my first D1 test this spring. It’s the lowest level in PC and the riding and HM (horse management- stable skills and horse knowledge) were combined.
Shortly after joining Pony Club I started leasing Chester, the 32 year old pony at Grandview. He’s the exact same age as Heather and they’ve literally grown up together. That being said, he’s old and stubborn. But he was a super great first pony! He too required a lot of confidence and sometimes a firm talking to. He’s also an extremely slow pony. 😂
I started going to some different clinics hosted by Pony Club and I took my D2 HM and Flat in the summer. I passed!
Here’s some fun pics from a jumping day we had with my friend in preparation for a show in July. 😋 That was the day I had my first (and as of right now, only) two falls. 😩 They really weren’t that bad… I landed on my feet for one of them! We did jump higher than this, I don’t have any pictures at the moment though. I think the highest was 2’3.
Remember that show I was talking about? Well we did it! It was so much fun, oh my gosh. I loved it! My grandparents came to watch and everything. It was an eventing show so we did dressage, show jumping and cross country. I had been training my friend so it was awesome to cheer each other on! And of course Chester did amazing! Here’s the highlights:
It was a blast! Such a beautiful day and a ton of people and horses there.
The next big project was working on my D3 HM and flat tests plus my D2 jump. After a very difficult clinic with one of our Pony Club members I decided to hold off on the flat. But I went full force ahead on the other two! My friend and I worked our butts off preparing for those tests since we were both doing the same ones (I was doing D2 jump, she was doing D3 flat but we were both doing the HM) The day finally came. It was with a NATIONAL examiner. However she was super nice and it was a great experience, we also has a clinic afterwards with her. I’m happy to say that I passed both tests that day!
So that was the main last thing I’ve worked towards. I’m looking forward to this year taking my C1 test (a little intimidated by that one! 😬), D3 flat and D2 dressage. It’ll be an adventure!
I’m happy and sad to say that I’ve grown out of Chester. 😥 He could definitely carry me even though he was small, but unfortunately due to his age he cannot get me much farther. Especially in jumping he cannot be jumping the required height very constantly and he’s only getting older. I love him so much but I had to move on.
The good news is that Heather had only one more horse available for leasing. His name is Elliot. 🙂
He is a super cute and gentle bay Arabian. He’s 22 so he’s up there in age too but because of his breed he’s a little more spicy sometimes. Plus he has only been used in lessons and not super consistently because not everybody can handle him.
So all that to say he’s a challenge but I think he’ll be an appropriate challenge for the level I’m in for riding. He is absolutely so sweet and kind and our personalities work really well together. I started leasing him about two months ago and it’s been going great! We’re still getting to know each other but that’s okay!
A downside to him is that he doesn’t jump. He was never really taught how to. But he’s gotten feedback that he’s a really great dressage horse because of his smooth gaits and transitions, so we’ll be more of going down that track with him.
I’m super excited to keep working with him! I’ll be updating you all as we go along and make more progress.
That’s pretty much up to date on my adventures. 🙂 Thank you all so much for reading! I will include a few more of my favorite pictures below that I didn’t get the chance to include above.
Keep riding!
Lucy
