The Early Days

Originally posted 9 Sept 2007

Thought it might be nice to share where I've come from, horse-wise.
I began riding at about 10 when my parents' best friend, Fred, put me on their old horse. I was instantly hooked! I began going to Pony Club Camp each year on borrowed horses, until we bought 5 acres and were given a rescued ex-racehorse called Chubby. He was a lot older than we were told originally, and I never really did well on him, but I had a lot of fun trying!
I'm attempting to insert pictures here:

OK, they didn't copy over, please see the original post here.

When I hit senior high school, horses took a back seat and in the end Chubby had to be sold. I was a bit sad but otherwise engaged. I only had a couple of rides bewteen 15 and 20, when I met my husband. He had the most wonderful horses I'd ever seen, AND he let me ride the most gorgeous chestnut Arab...I was in love, both with him and the Arab LOL!
We began dating and I began riding again. I was terrified a lot of the time, and fell off quite a bit trying to learn to ride bareback, luckily the Arab is not so tall as a TB :) Ill health intervened in the form of gladular fever then an undiagnosed allergy, both of which took their toll, and everything suffered. Diagnosis under my belt, I felt better than I had in years. Here's a photo of me riding the Arab on the beach 2 days after eliminating the problem food - it was an awesome day! And one a few years later doing my first official dressage test on a borrowed pony.



And then I had children, as the saying goes LOL!