The Big Exciting Updates You've All Been Waiting For

best at poles

I feel like my blog has a shocking dearth of exciting things to talk about lately. I mean, I wanted to write a riding update last week. I was really excited about all the progress we were making. I started typing "you guys we CANTERED OVER GROUND POLES and Courage wanted to whig out but I rode like a BADASS and we FIGURED IT OUT and F*** YEAH GROUND POLES."

But like... would you read that?

No. No you would not. Not even if you were my mother.

HEADSHOT

In fact, you'd be like "SB, western pleasure horses do that ALL DAY LONG. Can't you try a little harder?"

Ok. So then I hopped on in the indoor and had THE BEST RIDE EVER for us in dressage. Walk. Trot. Canter. Both leads. Direction changes. Courage was soft and uphill and balanced and relaxed.

And I was riding alone, so obviously there is no photo evidence besides a fancy head shot.

So I was going to write a post about that, but then I realized I was literally bragging that my horse could walk, trot, and canter in a 20 meter circle in an indoor, which is like, less impressive than a horse with 30 days under saddle who can do the EXACT SAME THING.

Sigh.

doing it right eventually

I know I'm going slow with Courage because I want him to learn things the right way. I know there's no point in jumping until he's rateable on the flat, then over poles. I know I'm being ridiculous and going too slow and that I could just ram and jam and screw flatwork and I know that makes better blog fodder.

I mean, let's face it: if I was all "HELLZ YEAH JUMPING 3'6" ON C RAGE", everyone would be like "omg you're so amazing and your horse is sooooo cool". But when I say "yep cantering ground poles," even my response is "yawn hella boring moving right along".

but is it fancy enough?

All that to say: Courage and I are working away at the all-important basics. We're making, slow, steady, non-linear progress.

Oh, and I might have some exciting updates soon.