Seems appropriate to kick off National Blog Posting Month with “When and why did you start riding?”
I was 6 or 7 when I started riding and began taking lessons for reasons I honest cannot recall. I don’t yet have kids, but I think parents often try a bunch of activities with kids to (a) get them out of the house and (b) see what might stick. My mom shares my love of animals and grew up riding horses, so I’m sure she was excited for an excuse to spend more time around them.
My first forays into “real” riding were at a small, local farm where a very nice lady ran what I would call a boutique lesson program. Her horses were lovely, well-schooled, and nicely cared for. I’m pretty sure I went riding once or twice per week, and recall being extremely excited about cantering. It seemed pretty fast and badass at the time – and depending on the horse, sometimes it still does!
Hilariously, one of my most prominent memories about this particular barn was that the tack room contained a small library of horse-related books, which was for a horse- and book-crazy kid something akin to heaven on Earth. I became particularly obsessed with the Blue Ribbon series, which I honestly thought I might have imagined until Internet Magic allowed me to rustle up the titles via Amazon. Could there be a more wonderfully eighties book cover? I don’t think so. The blonde, feathered hair… the turtleneck… the oversized sweater. So much to love about this.
Urban Thoroughbred 