Month: January 2026

I have a post that’s been sitting half-completed in my draft folder since last week. Presto and I did a clinic with Tom McEwen, and it was fun, and I’d already made it about halfway through writing up my recap.

And then Saturday morning rolled around, and I watched a man get murdered in the streets of Minneapolis by the government, right there on my phone. Two weeks after, on the same phone, I watched a woman also get murdered on the streets of Minneapolis by the government. For the past year we’ve watched increasing violence, racism, misogyny, and blatant disregard of the law. Not to mention the propaganda and gaslighting.

We are 27 days into 2026 and ICE is already responsible for the deaths of 9 people. I’m struggling to wrap my head around that, and especially struggling to wrap my head around how to just… continue carrying on with the rest of my life, as if nothing is on fire. As if we aren’t currently living through the most dangerous moment of my lifetime. It doesn’t feel right to move along as if none of it is happening. To not at least acknowledge how absolutely insane and dangerous and heartbreaking this all is. How it absolutely DOES and WILL affect the horse industry and every single one of us… everything is connected.

On the other hand, I know that demoralization, stagnation, and fear are the goals of this regime. A populace that has no joy left is easily cowed. While it doesn’t feel right to just carry on as usual, it also doesn’t feel right to go dark and silent. There’s a constant push and pull. The horses are helping me cope with all this, and reading everyone’s updates helps to balance out everything else. I have to assume it’s the same for many of you, as well?

I don’t really have an eloquent, poetic message here. I wish I did. What I can offer is acknowledgement and solidarity. I know many of you are feeling the same way I am, and it’s just an absolutely surreal way to be moving through day to day life. I’m sad. I’m pissed off. I’m scared for our country and its citizens. But I still have horses to ride and care for, and work to do. I don’t know the right way to balance all of that alongside my online presence.

If anyone needs a safe space to talk or vent, my PM’s are always open. If you know someone who needs help, I’m happy to assist with that however I can, too.

In the meantime, I felt like it was important to at least put this out there and say that for me, this is NOT business as usual and I don’t want it to appear like it is. I’m struggling to make odds or ends of it. Struggling to know what the right way forward is, as far as content. As someone with a platform, I feel an obligation to say something, but I really have no idea the right way to handle all of this together. This is my first dystopian hellscape experience, please bear with me while I find my way through it.

Ready or not, winter season has officially started in Ocala. All the snowbirds are trickling in, the circuit shows have kicked off, and suddenly the calendar is full to bursting. Depending on how you feel about all that, it’s either annoying or exciting.

It also means a return of the Great Seasonal Side Hustle for me, because we definitely do like extra money. Last year I mostly worked at HITS, which is my preference between the two major h/j facilities here. The vibes are better, the parking is close and easy, and the vendor area is near a couple food options. As a vendor, those are selling points. This year, however, the store is doing something a little different. We have 3 locations in Ocala – a really nice cabin at WEC over by the hunter rings with all the latest and greatest, a clearance trailer at WEC up by the vendor village with literally everything inside 15-50% off, as well as a trailer at HITS. Since my hours of availability are the least predictable and consistent, I’m in the clearance trailer at WEC this year. Which, let’s be real, is probably the best place for me anyway. Who loves a good deal more than me? Literally no one.

The downsides are that parking at WEC is a literal nightmare and there’s nowhere for me to get food anywhere nearby. Also, the WiFi blows (to be fair it also blows at HITS… and in this entire town, really…). The clearance trailer is kind of fun though, since discounting stuff always makes people happy. Also, one of our customers has the cutest corgi puppy. Bonus.

This is also the time of year where everyone starts to come visit, so it seems like friends are always trickling through, and I have a couple business meetings set up next month with people I’ve only ever talked to on the phone or through Zoom.

Things are also back in full swing with riding, too. I started up lessons again this week, and I’ve got a clinic and a show on the calendar for this month. I’m trying very hard not to think about the fact that we’re less than two months from foaling season… the first mare hits 320 days in mid-February and after that they’re pretty much all just bambambam one after the other through mid-May. We’ve got 9 expected foals this year, which sounds relatively terrifying because 6 felt like a lot last year.

I guess I should do a post on what all foals we’re expecting, in case anyone is thinking about adding a cute little baby horse family member to their herd this year. You know you want one. We all want one right? Of course we do. Baby horses are fun (mostly).

Anyway, on to more fun things. Bingy boy and Presto have both been in regular work, gearing up for the season. Presto got a bit of a chill time/mini hack vacay around Christmas and New Years since I knew we’d be hitting the ground running in January. Bingo has mostly just been chipping away at the basics. Like learning to go straight, the beginning of lateral work, transitions and half halts, etc. He’s pretty clever, and gets better ride over ride.

He’s naturally pretty well-balanced but was very crooked when we started and, like most racehorses, is a bit stuck in the base of his neck and wants to do everything with this weight down in his shoulders. That’s the way they run, after all. He is a very big and long horse so it’ll take him some time to build up the muscle and ability to truly carry himself from behind, but he’s starting to understand what I’m asking and shows glimmers of it now and then. He’s naturally quite well balanced and definitely has the ability to be uphill, so I think as soon as we get the “shoulders up” concept and muscling established, he’s gonna be fancy on the flat. I haven’t really done much jumping at home aside from trotting and cantering cavaletti… I’m alone most of the time and it’s difficult to start one over fences without a ground person to set things and pick up rails, so I’ve been holding off on much of that.

As of this week we’re back in our regular lesson schedule. Presto had a jump lesson on Monday, which was rusty at best.

I haven’t jumped a course on him since mid-November, aside from XC schooling, so I was honestly expecting him to be a little wild and wooly. Presto was the opposite. A little TOO quiet, and behind my leg. We finished up better than we started, but we’ve got another lesson scheduled for today to try to polish that back up a bit more. My trainer is hosting a Tom McEwen clinic next week and I signed up for a private dressage lesson plus both the SJ day and the XC day, so Presto will be busy. Hopefully we’re back in sync by then.

As for Bingo, he had his first training ride on Tuesday, which was very exciting. I’m maybe like 5 weeks into actual retraining with him, and the past two weeks are the first ones where he’s done more “working” than hacking. He’s still pretty brand new to all of this, but I really wanted my trainer to sit on him because 1) she’s a much better rider than I am, and can help him understand things more clearly 2) obvi I wanted to see what she thought of him.

He loaded and traveled great, and while he was definitely wide-eyed and interested at all the activity (their place always has a lot happening, it’s overstimulating to the max compared to our very quiet life here at our home farm) he was reasonably behaved. Trainer did some groundwork with him, which he was mostly good for but tried a couple times to bolt and exit the arena, so she went absolutely skiing. He eventually gave up and focused and decided that maybe he could circle her politely after all.

She got on him for maybe 10 minutes at the end and he was foot-perfect for that. He trotted and cantered and did his transitions and was straight and relaxed. A+ for sure. She said he felt really straight and even, and especially liked his canter. We’re on the same page there.

After she was done I untacked him and grazed him by the ring for a while so he could take in more of the activity, and by that point he was very settled. He loaded back up like a champ and ta-da, first training ride in the books. I think the goal will be one a week, and then we’ll kinda see how things go week by week from there. The first one was kind of a “let’s see where we’re at” so we can make a plan for him going forward. The big thing at this point is obviously just strength. All of what we’re asking is brand new to him.

Patreon folks, you have video of him on your dashboard, and I’ll try to get some video up from every training ride so you can see the progression. Sometimes I set up my Pivo at home to get some footage of me riding him too… the goal is to document his journey pretty clearly from the start, so hopefully the change will be fun to watch over time!

One other fun happening that I’m finally able to announce publicly – I was invited to join, and elected to the Retired Racehorse Project Board of Directors. They have some really interesting ideas as far as breeding, registration, databases, pedigree tracking, etc so I was approached due to my history with those things. I’m very honored to have been asked and looking forward to seeing what we can do over my two year term!

Time is FLYING, it feels hard to believe that it’s already been almost two months since Bingo got to Florida!

He arrived on November 11th, and his transition from race mode to sport mode has been, knock on wood, relatively uncomplicated so far. New shoes, ulcer treatment, 24/7 turnout with 24/7 forage, massage, magnawave, chiropractic adjustment, daily stretches, and learning how to move and carry his body differently… he’s already started to morph into a new animal.

Here are pics from November 4, his retirement day:

And these pictures are from December 20th, so 6 weeks off the track and 5 weeks in Florida.

I think it’s safe to say that the off-track life definitely suits him!

He still needs another 50-100lbs of weight and has PLENTY more frame to fill out with muscle, so I can’t wait to see how he keeps developing. He’s going to be massive when all is said and done, I think. He’s just turning 6 at the end of March so there’s still a bit more development to come, in every regard (he really doesn’t need to get taller tho please… he’s tall enough…).

I’m also pleased with how he’s coming along under saddle so far. The first couple weeks were a mess of tangled limbs, body parts going different directions, and tripping all over himself and everything in his path. He’s gotten better week over week, and is starting to feel a) stronger b) straighter c) like he’s beginning to have the slightest little inklings to push and carry (listen, the moments are fleeting, but they do happen).

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We’ve got a very long way to go, of course, but considering that half of his rides are just walk hacks, I think he’s starting to put things together pretty well.

On Christmas Bingo went on his first off-property adventure, just a quiet hack around a local XC venue, and he was a little superstar. It took him a few minutes to believe he could walk in the water and not drown, but once he was in he seemed to have fun.

I’m hoping I can get him to a lesson or training ride this month to keep the progress rolling!

I’m a bit stumped at how to even begin to write a 2025 wrap up post, or what to say. For I while I decided I just wouldn’t say anything at all, and intended to let the end of the year pass without fanfare. Ultimately, though, that didn’t feel right either. Y’all know by now that I’m not a woman of few words (how many times do you think my editors have asked me to shorten something?).

I turned 42 years old this year – my favorite number. The nerds among us that have read or seen The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (if you haven’t I will pause here to insist you go culture yourself immediately) will recognize the number 42. In the story, people build a supercomputer called Deep Thought, and ask it to figure out the meaning of life, the universe, and everything in it (side note, this book is from 1979 but that sure is sounding reminiscent of how so many people use modern day AI, is it not?). After 7.5 million years of computing, Deep Thought spits out the answer to the ultimate question: 42. The significance or lack thereof when it comes to the number 42 is never explained in the story, and people have been debating it ever since.

Personally I’ve always found that answer to be amusing, and deeply satisfying. It embodies the idea that the meaning of life is whatever you want it to be… it’s what you make it. It certainly isn’t for someone or something else to figure out for you. In April I had the number 42 tattooed on the back of my leg, and I dunno how to explain it, but I just had a sense that this year would be one of clarity for me. (am I getting more woo woo with age? Perhaps. Please do not ask questions about my Tiger’s Eye necklace, it’ll make me seem even more like a feral bog witch than I already do)

In every way, that feels like exactly what happened. I learned A LOT this year. About myself, about the world we live in, about the systems we’re part of (for better or worse), about my role in it, and about what really “fills my cup”, so to speak. Authenticity has always been incredibly important to me, and although I tend to keep my cards pretty close to my chest (my close friends really deserve awards for persevering enough to actually get to know me), I do feel like I’ve become more and more authentically myself as I’ve gotten older. I used to fear aging, and now I find myself embracing it. The bullshit really does start to fade away over time.

But the process of that – it’s not always great. It’s uncomfortable. I could probably try to throw some kind of motivational quote at you about how everything you want is just on the other side of discomfort or blah blah blah. Don’t worry, I won’t do that to you because it would irritate the shit out of me, too. The truth is that some changes – the ones that aren’t really physically SEEN – almost feel more like a reckoning. They shake you to your core. For me, someone who has a very hard time being vulnerable and is slow to understand/process my own feelings… this year has seen some hard days. I’ve spent a lot of time questioning literally everything.

This year I saw things in our federal government, local and online communities, and equestrian governing bodies that I cannot unsee or dismiss. I simultaneously feel like I know too much but not enough. 2025 was one of those that said “do we take the easy way out and just give up, or do we stand up and fight in whatever ways we can?”. I choose the latter.

I’ve done a lot this year to cultivate my life to reflect what I want to see, hear, and embody. I unfollowed social media accounts that don’t align with my values. I stopped shopping at some stores and websites. I cancelled A LOT of accounts with businesses that were using my money in ways I don’t agree with. I started actively searching out companies and people that feel true to ME and what I stand for. It’s easy to feel like you’re just one person and one person doesn’t make a difference, but MANY people sure do, and you can’t get many unless you start with one.

In all the ways that 2025 sometimes felt like living in a house on fire, there were still plenty of highlights for the reel.

• My second-gen homebred that very nearly didn’t make it past the first two weeks of his life moved up to Preliminary, and did the 1.20m jumpers at WEC. And while of course those things are fun little checkboxes to tick, really I learned just how much I love this horse, even when he sometimes makes it difficult to do so. He brings joy to my life every single day, and that’s the part you can’t capture in a social media highlight reel.
• I figured out that truly, I like the process of learning more than I like competing. I’ve always had an on again/off again relationship with competition, but this year was the first time since I was a kid that I was actually able to be in a consistent lesson and training program all year long. Honestly, that’s the part that keeps me going. For me it’s just FUN to learn, and to see my horses get better. Competing is fun too, and definitely has it’s place in my world and probably always will, but it’s not what fuels or fulfills me.
• I got to see my top 4 FAVORITE bands/artists in concert (Bad Omens, Sleep Token, Billie Eilish, and Motionless in White), and share the experience with some of my bestest friends. Music is incredibly important to me, so this was big. I dunno if it’s the neurodivergence, but music and lyrics have always helped me understand myself and connect to people, especially the music of those particular artists.
• My business has taken off such that, for the first time since I started, I’m currently not taking on new clients for 2026.
• I found that when I started to shut the door on things that don’t align with who I am, other opportunities found me. Potentially big ones, and ones that give me a feeling of ongoing purpose. I’m understanding more and more just how precious TIME is, and I want to spend it wisely and meaningfully. There’s so much potential for big and purposeful change in our industry, and these could be opportunities for me to take some of that disillusionment I’ve felt this year and turn it into something positive. (We love being a do-er and not just a complainer, amiright?)

But most importantly of all, when I think back on the moments that added the most value to my life this year, it really wasn’t the accomplishments or the achievements on the highlight reel. It was the moments that held a lot of deeper meaning. Like the moment the curtain dropped at the Sleep Token concert (that my crazy ass flew to SEATTLE for) and simultaneously my friend belted out a series of squawks that could only be described as cockatoo-esque. Or the time when the maiden mare didn’t lay down during labor and it took three of us to get that slippery gooey dolphin of a foal safely into the world (a truer and slimier bonding experience does not exist, lemme tell ya). Or hacking around the farm after a particularly challenging horse show and realizing that this – getting to ride horses that I love, live in a place that I find to be incredibly beautiful, do life with people that add meaning to it, and admittedly sometimes participate in some exceptionally weird shit – those are the things that make up my 42.

For that, 2025, I thank you.