What Are We Waiting For?

When I had Cuna and was doing unrecognized BN eventing, I remember telling a friend that I wanted really cool $300 breeches but I was going to wait until we were going recognized novice at least because I didn't want to look pretentious.

Friend, ex-marine, cancer survivor, and all around kick-ass person said "But you aren't guaranteed tomorrow."

Cuna ended up with laminitis in both front feet and we never made it to a recognized event.

I never bought $300 breeches.

I don't know that my life is poorer for the lack of overpriced sport-pants, but it's an interesting thought. Now I have Courage and eventing is definitely not in our future, but we're hacking our way through first-ish level-ish dressage-ish and starting to semi-think about second level. I'm riding in a bargain pair of field boots that make my legs look pretty ridiculous and I day dream a little bit about custom tall boots.

Which I said I'll order when I have second level bronze scores.

Why? I don't know. It's just an arbitrary line in the sand that I drew to differentiate when I'd be doing "real" dressage vs screwing around like I am now. I mean, I'm working my ass off (as much as is possible whilst not screwing up my rehab, ugh) and I have been for a couple years now.

And, yeah, if I was the "dressage or die" type, I'd be better served to sell Courage and get a horse with more natural aptitude for the sport, but I'm not. I'm doing dressage because it's what Courage wants to do and given his conformation and movement, he'll take me as far as I can go as long as I learn to manage him correctly.

So it's not that I lack commitment--it's that this is what equestrian sport is for me. It's relationship-based and daily, not big show goals and winter circuits and $$$$$$.

And I'm not guaranteed tomorrow.

or today, really

I'm super pumped to go hang out with Karen for Rolex and she's already informed me that shopping for custom boots while there is on her radar.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about it--I'm not planning any big shows with C this year for personal, non-financial reasons. And I keep wondering--why wait? I know I want them. It's not like if I'd sprung for the dream breeches back in the day that I'd regret having them now.

def would have regretted not getting this "synchronized peeing" shot

Why do I need to be doing "real dressage" to have a fun thing that would bring me joy every day? And just because I say 60% at recognized second level is "real" doesn't mean that the high and mighty dressage queens will agree with me. I'm sure there's someone who thinks custom boots before your first individual (not team) Olympic gold are pretentious.

A post shared by PS of Sweden (@psofsweden) on Mar 5, 2017 at 5:21am PST

But why does their opinion matter? They sound like an uptight bitch I wouldn't be friends with anyways.

And hello does that horse look like imaginary future Courage or what??

So tell me, people of blogland--when are beautiful custom boots a reasonable choice?