What's Inside

I don’t know about you but I have a need to ride! I love what I do, I absolutely live to ride. I like to think of it as a hunger. If I don’t get to ride I feel as though I am starving. There is something about the time we spend in the barn and in that saddle that just feeds a certain happiness.

Now to be realistic, when I am looking up at my horse, spitting out a mouth full of arena dirt, I have to wonder why I love this particular sport. Why do I love getting up early to feed 20 hungry mouths, waiting in whatever freakish weather that has materialized throughout the night. Why do I deal with hay down my shirt and mixing supplements, and mucking stalls, and tending wounds, and worrying about whether I will be able to afford this or that thing that my horse “needs”. Why do I torture myself with such a complicated sport when I could easily pick up soccer or tennis. I could settle for swimming, track, or football (why not, probably easier) like all of the other “normal” high school goers. But no, I had to pick the sport that requires a partner who doesn’t speak the same language, who didn’t have riding on the agenda, and doesn’t like to travel to compete. In fact this particular partner doesn’t even come close to thinking like me. I am a predator and he is prey. In all honesty I am supposed to eat my teammate. So I have to learn to think like him and interpret what he is thinking and how he will understand something. First off, I have to convince this creature that what I am asking him to do will not kill him and he should actually enjoy it. So why do I continue to struggle at this sport we call Equestrianism?

Because it’s just what I do. When my choice is questioned I really don’t know why there is no other sport that will satisfy me. I love the challenge of figuring out each horse. I love the smell of the horses and each of the individual personalities. I love the time spent in the quiet of the barn simply listening to the horses. I live for the excitement of show time. Having drug myself from bed at 4am and cleaned my tack, packed the trailer, and prepped the horse. Then Loaded the horse, made the drive, un loaded, and tacked my horse. Only to receive a 5^th place, 50 cent, ribbon and still have loved every minute of it! Recognizing the improvements that the team had made and being overjoyed with the personal victory.

Maybe it’s because this sport is one of the few that we cannot refer to as a game. You can play a game of soccer, you can play tennis and you can play in the water but you cannot play riding. This is not a game of which we choose to consider our sport. We cannot play with these creatures. We can enjoy them and have fun and love being with them but we have to have an understanding of them if we want to “play” with them. Maybe the uniqueness of the sport is part of why I choose it. The only thing I am sure of is that I have a hunger to ride. I cannot find that same deep desire for the little successes in any other sport. As riders we simply love what we do and everything that comes with our decision to participate in this sport is just a part of it. We don’t think about mucking through the mud or chasing our horse around the pasture, or the dreaded fall and the difficult decision to get back on. It’s just what we do; it’s just what makes us happy!

What is it about equestrianism that makes you enjoy it? In all of its complexity is it quite simply what makes you happy?

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