Everything Leading Up to Now

When I was a little girl, somewhere around the age of 5 or 6, we had some family friends who owned horses. One day we went to their house to ride, obviously this was my first time to ever ride (maybe even see) a horse, and I LOVED it! Even though it was so long ago, I can still remember the feeling that went over me as I sat up on that tiny pony. (keep in mind that I was literally just sitting there while our friend led the horse around) I can't remember a lot after that day, but I'm sure that we went back to their house many times to ride horses.

The next memory I have is when my family and I went on a long road trip to Florida, seeing as we live in Texas, it was a long ride. On the way back home, we stayed at a dude ranch in Georgia. Now these people honestly didn't really care to ask how experienced our family was with horses, so while everyone 12 years and older went to herd and (attempt to) lasso cattle, myself and two of my siblings stayed behind with my dad to be led around on there 25 year old horse. I was about 8 at the time and I thought I knew much more about horses than I did. So when I got up on that horse I felt the same feeling I felt the first time I rode. After about 15 minutes, however, I got bored; (I guess) And I wanted to "ride the horse on my own" . Thankfully, my dad wouldn't let me; but my 10 year old sister got to. (BOY was I mad about that) I was so jealous I started crying about not being able to ride without being led. Anyways, that's all the memory I have of that place.

Probably not more than a year later, I had the opportunity to go to a riding camp, little did I know that we would only be riding 15 minutes out of the 8 hour time period that we were there. So yeah, we swam in their incredibly dirty pool, did crafts and played on the playground. At the end of the day we got to hop on a horse and be led around by a trainer while we showed off our balancing skills to our watching parents. Anyways, I was definitely upset about that.

Less than 3 years ago, my family, our cousins, grandparents and I spent part of our summer in Brenham, Texas on a VRBO on an AMAZING lot of land. I'm not trying to brag in any way, keep in mind that the cost of all of this was split up between three families. This place had the option for us to ride horses with the help of a trainer, and I am SO glad we did it. The trainer at this establishment was IN-CRED-I-BLE! First, she assessed our experience and ability to ride, then she picked out the best horse for each child, then she had us each in a round pen and lounged the horse while we were on it. Then we all went on a trail ride with our horse. Lastly, she let all the kids who she thought were experienced enough go out riding on their lot of land with her, this was about 15 acres. I am SO glad I was one of the kids who she thought was experienced enough, because it seriously CHANGED MY LIFE! This was the first real time I had actually had a relationship with a horse. The horse I rode was a black, 15 hand, 16 year old mare named Zoe. I'm not sure why she put me on a mare when they had plenty of geldings, but I'm glad she did. No other horse could have taught me as much as Zoe did. I can't really pinpoint exactly what was so life-changing about that experience but it changed my entire view of horses; how they are not like cars, how they need care and attention, and that was my favorite part. I had never felt like I was trapped or in prison, but when I rode Zoe in that grassy countryside, I felt free.

*wipes away a tear* Okay! So that experience is probably the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. And after we got home I begged my parents for a horse, I begged and I begged. I searched online for horses that were for sale. I watched hundreds of hours of equestrian youtubers. To name a few, Claire Eventing, Jet Eventing, Laura Elsie Grace and lilpetschannel, if you are like I was, then those girls will keep you entertained for hours, or even days in my case! Finally my parents gave me an answer, "No." I was just uneducated, and watching videos of people jumping their horses isn't going to teach me horse care or the responsibility of owning one. So I bought books and made hundreds of Google searches. "basic horse care", "picking out the right horse" , "how to know if you are ready to buy a horse" , "how much does a horse cost", "how to get a bajillion dollars" and things like that. I never actually knew how much I needed to know. I literally knew about every single horse grooming product you could think of, I could tell you several facts about more horse breeds I could care to count, I could tell you the average price of individual horse breeds based on several different studies. I knew the percentage of people in the United States who owned horses, I could tell you how many horses were born in a minute, I could tell you how to identify different illnesses in horses, I could tell you how old a horse was by looking at its teeth. Although some of these things are critical to know, you need more than knowledge to ride a horse, you need experience. Even though I had ridden tons of different horses, (I've ridden more times than I listed above, I just listed those times because they were the most beneficial to my riding journey) I had never actually ridden a horse and worked on what I needed to worked on. All of the times I had ridden a horse, aside from Brenham, there was always a person telling me something to do, not based on what I personally needed to work on as a rider, but what every rider they instructed had to do.

Okay, that was a whole lot of information thrown at you, and that honestly took way too much work on my part. Deep breaths, Emily, deep breaths. Everything changed about six months ago, when I started taking consistent riding lessons from an instructor who lives 10 minutes away from my house. I was so excited to finally start taking lessons after I had been begging my parents for years. (everything I'm saying here about begging makes me sound like a brat of a child, trust me, thats not at all how everything happened) One day my mom and I went to the instructors house to meet her and the horses. She had five horses at the time, Red, (who is the horse that she rode and still rides for our lessons) Cowboy, (who is her 27 year old beast of a horse) Belle, (who is the prettiest horse that I had ever seen) Gypsy, (who is the horse I ended up riding for lessons, and is the sweetest horse in the world, although sometimes she can be tough to work with) and Junior. (who looks almost identical to Gypsy, aside from the fact that his sock is on a different leg) Our first meeting went well, I got well acquainted with her and I found out which horse I would be riding based on my experience with horses. My instructor is one of the nicest people I have ever met, and knows exactly what I need to work on and how to apply it to my riding. Gypsy is a chestnut mare, (I have no idea what my deal is with mares it's kinda a thing) with a white stripe and a sock on one leg. She is roughly 14.3 hands and is 14 years old. Her stature matches well with me because I'm short for my age. For the past six months I've been riding with her and it has been the most educational time of my life and I've learned so much more about horses than I could've ever learned from all the books I read combined. I've grown so close to Gypsy and learned a lot about her as well, my instructor often says, "You and Gypsy have a unique bond that I can't figure out".

I am still taking lessons, but my parents have decided to get me a horse. And I am SO SO SO excited about it, I am beyond words and I have wanted this all my life, both my parents and my instructor think that I am ready to accept this responsibility. I am so blessed to live on 60 acres where we are able to keep animals. We have all the measurements and layout for fencing, we are consulting a recommended fencing company to come out and see if they would build for us. We are going to talk to them within the next week, if they choose to work with us, it will probably take them a few weeks to get prepared and get all of the materials they will need to start. Once they start, my parents assume it will take about two weeks for them to finish all of the fencing. It'll take this long because we are fencing in about and acre. While this is going on, we are going to build/buy shelter for the horse and storage for all our supplies. We will also be looking into a companion for the horse, since we have never owned a horse before, we think it is best to just start with one, but get another animal (probably a mini donkey or two) to keep the horse company while I can't be out there.

This is pretty much everything that has happening up until now and I'm super excited to see what my equestrian future holds.

Thanks for reading almost 2000 words that took me 3 hours to type. I'll probably be posting again soon once we talk to the fencing people.

The cover on this post is not a horse that I've ridden. //