Author: Amanda C

Being a blogger can have it’s ups and downs. On one hand, it’s fun to share everything with people… you often find a lot of common ground and camaraderie in both the triumphs and the struggles of day-to-day horse ownership. You also have a really detailed journal of sorts, which can be fun and really helpful to look back on. For some of us, writing can even be cathartic, in a way. And then of course, there’s the other end of the spectrum: sharing so many details, good and bad, can leave you open for a lot of criticism. I think just about every blogger, and honestly probably most people that are active on any kind of social media, have probably encountered this.

It’s easy to sit here behind a computer screen and judge someone’s situation, especially when it comes to photos. I think we’ve all been guilty of it at least a few times. But unless you a) know someone’s horse b) know someone’s story c) have a really good understanding of their sport… can you really get an accurate assessment of the situation from a photo?

I kinda feel like, for me personally, there are a few things I will always judge someone for:

• Hurting a horse, either intentionally or via gross negligence.
• Being a jerk to a horse.
• Acting like you’re perfect when you’re not. That’s just annoying. Don’t do that.

Things I will not judge you for:

• Your leg slipping back
• Your hands being too high/low
• Your release not being perfect
• Looking down
• Making mistakes
• All that other minutia that is just a part of riding

The vast majority of us are amateurs. We don’t get to sit on a ton of horses or spend 6 hours a day riding. We aren’t perfect, but I think it’s safe to say that the majority of us are trying to be better. Some of us have demons to work through, or issues that have plagued us forever. We make mistakes. I also know that what is correct for one sport is not necessarily correct for all sports, so I’m not going to sit here and criticize someone’s barrel racing or reining or endurance photos when I quite admittedly do not have a damn clue what I’m looking at.

For the most part I’ve dodged personal criticism a lot more than some other bloggers, probably because my horse is pretty simple and there isn’t a lot of major struggle for us aside from my own continuing education. For that I’m grateful, because I’ve seen some of the messages that strangers have had the audacity to send to other bloggers, and it is shocking. FYI, internet – it’s ok to express concern if it’s warranted, but it’s not ok to be an complete asshole about it.

This past weekend on Instagram I posted a picture from XC schooling that is not classically correct – we’d gotten a longish distance to a wide fence, so I stayed in a safety seat and let Henry work it out.

Someone thought it was appropriate to send me a message telling me that it was a horrible photo, that I was ripping my horse’s mouth off and slamming him in the back. I had no business jumping and should be ashamed of myself. How could I possibly be proud of a picture like that, they asked.

Ah, ever-so-kind internet stranger… let me tell you why.

I’ve always hated that damn fence. It’s wide, and I’ve found it intimidating. When we first schooled it a year ago I had a tendency to panic and either chase my horse to the base or curl up into fetal position and provide zero assistance, making his job really difficult. It’s been a while since I jumped it. So we galloped down to it and got a slightly long distance… not perfect. But here’s what happened this time: my horse was confident enough to go anyway, I kept my eyes and body up, I kept my balance back so he could easily get his front end up, slipped the reins as much as he needed, he was able to make a huge effort without me impeding him, and we galloped away in balance together, horse happy and looking for the next one like it was no big deal.

Was it perfect? No. Of course not. But any eventer will tell you that XC is not about being perfect. When a sport involves galloping at speed over solid fences, with varying terrain, out in the open, foot perfect rounds are few and far between. Being an effective XC rider is about learning to have good instincts in a less than perfect situation – something that has not been easy for me (especially when it comes to sitting the eff up, because laying on the neck  and staring down at the source of my impending doom is a favorite pastime of mine). The fact that this fence happened the way it did, we both handled it safely and without issue, and didn’t miss a beat… that did more for my confidence as a rider (and spoke more to our progress together) than 100 perfect fences would have.

So, to circle back to the question – how could I proud of that? Well, I’m pleased that I’m finally able to canter down to a jump that used to make me crap my pants, get a meh distance, and have no issue handling it in a safe way – a way that actually helps instead of hinders my horse. Who, btw, is a badass and jumped the absolute crap out of that fence, which is why I posted it in the first place. He’s amazing, with or without me. If you want to judge me for that, go ahead, knock yourself out.

I’m not quite sure what some of these Internet trolls think they’re going to accomplish by making rude comments to random amateur riders regarding their skill set or lack thereof. I think I’ll go with what my trainer says, but thanks so much for the fun and abundantly helpful critique. *insert much eye rolling here* PS – if you were trying to hurt my feelings, you’re going to have to try a lot harder than that. There is literally no one on the planet who is more critical of my riding than I am.

At the end of the day, we don’t know what each other’s struggles are as a rider, and sometimes we don’t really even have a full understanding of each other’s sports. You see people criticizing hunter riders or eventers for their “equitation” in a photo (god, can we STOP with the idea of one exact perfect position already? I hate it.) all the time. Sometimes though, there’s a reason for what you’re seeing in one still frame. This is just as good a reminder to me as anything else… maybe we should take a minute to consider things before we pass judgment.

Well… unless you’re mean to your horse… then all bets are off, you jerk. 😉

Aside from XC schooling, the other reason I went to Pine Hill on Saturday was to watch my friend Michelle (of Willow Tree Warmbloods) ride her pony in the Buck Davidson clinic. I love me some Buck, so I was sad to have missed being able to ride with him this year, but getting to stand in the ring during a couple lessons and listen/watch was still fun.

Side note: I did pause from taking pictures long enough to put one Buck-ism into my phone’s notes… “This is not a halfway sport. It’s all or nothing.“. The comment was related to a rider not being proactive enough to get the exercise done, but I thought it was applicable in lots of ways.

But anyway, clinic aside, Michelle also brought me some goodies. Namely, these:

Jumps! Ten standards, a couple boxes, a gate, 3 planks, and some jump cups. This might be the best gift I’ve ever gotten. I mean… I literally had two jumps before, one of which was just a single barrel. Now I pretty much have a whole course! And I didn’t have to pick up a single power tool! At some point I’ll paint them all and do some minor repairs, but for now, they certainly get the job done.

I also asked SO for a couple more barrels for Xmas (good news: since that one time I asked for a poop cart, he no longer even flinches at my weird gift requests. Who would ever want jewelry when you could have poop carts and plastic barrels? I wonder what he tells his friends about me…) since they’re so versatile. I could use them as jump standards or as filler or as just a jump by themselves. Plus I want to make a couple of short little 3’6″ standards to use in conjunction with my little white barrel to make a corner. And rails, I need more rails, but those are easy enough to acquire. Plus I want to make one of these:

Michelle also brought me a couple of paintings from Henry’s 2016 show season, and they’re gorgeous as usual. I love that she uses my colors, it really ups the level of awesome.

Don’t forget that a painting from Michelle is one of the prizes for winning the logo contest… you have a couple more weeks left to get entries in. It looks like we’ll be adding more prizes, too!

On Saturday I loaded Henry up and went down to Pine Hill to meet up with Bobby and Trainer for an XC school – Henry’s first time out on XC since JULY at Coconino.

The plan was to just hop around some Novice stuff, get back in the groove, and see how he felt. Henry on the other hand did not seem to get the memo about an easy, laid-back schooling, because he was Super Pumped from fence one. The Novice stuff was like Bam. Done. Easy. Boring.

Henny was in beast mode, for sure. So I pointed him at the Training ramp that I hate so much and he locked on, said “Bish, you best hang on” (honestly this was kind of the theme of the day) and absolutely LEAPED over it like he was channeling his inner Ballynoe Castle. Well, alright then. Guess Henny came to play.

After that we didn’t waste his effort on the Novice fences anymore (except for when Bobby and I tried to tandem jump the N log into the crater and kind of sucked at it. The video is amusing.). Mostly we just stuck to the Training combos, which I haven’t jumped before. Most of them were one-and-done, no prob, because my horse is a badass. Except for the Irish Bank of Death… it rides so awkward, I just could not get it right.

So we jumped through that combo (brush, down the hill, up the small bank, one and a half strides, off the cliff of death) several times, until I was marginally less terrible, then called it a day on that one. We’ll come back to it again later (unless it gets bulldozed before then, which I may or may not be willing to pay someone to do. Just saying…).

Then we went over to the angled feeders, which I thought would be tougher than it was. There’s really only one exact straight line through that combo where the striding works out, and it means that both feeders are jumped on an angle. Trainer said just line up with the tree beyond it, which worked out perfectly.

After that it was over to the up bank combo – train car, up the hill to the bank, one stride, bank, three bending strides to a skinny. I was a little intimidated by this one but it rode really well… it was my favorite combo of the day.

We wrapped up our day with the water. We jumped the Training tiki hut and ditch in the woods (which you can’t see in the video) then came out to the water combo, which is a little jump, two strides downhill to another little jump landing in the water, then through the water and out over the little chevron. Henny is always bold at water, no problem there either. We called it quits after that.

I was very pleased with how good Henry felt. He came out guns blazing, very professional, and stayed that way. He was forward (I mostly just tried to stay out of his way, really), he didn’t get tired, and he felt really strong and plenty capable.

And then Trainer and Bobby started giving me shit about moving up, and then somehow they talked me into filling out an entry for the January horse trial on the spot, before the post-XC glow wore off. So… I guess we’re running T next month. If I die I’m blaming Bobby.

Yesterday we went for a long walk and a stretchy trot, and Henry felt great. Maybe a little TOO great, there was some leaping and squealing involved. I guess he handled the schooling just fine…

When I was a kid, COTH and Practical Horseman were the two big magazines for the h/j crowd. COTH was the fancy “cool” magazine with all the pretty show pictures and ads for things I could not afford. I went about a decade without picking one up (aside from the stallion issue, which I used to buy every year) but since winning a subscription at AEC and reading them regularly for the past year plus… it’s lost a lot of it’s luster for me. I like their Untacked side publication and I like the fact that you can choose print or digital, but the content has left me wanting. Practical Horseman is still the same ol’ solid, dependable magazine that it always was, with lots of riding articles, but it starts to feel like the same thing over and over after a while. Fun to page through, but nothing particularly exciting or cutting edge.

This year I’ve branched out a little bit into some of the newer publications, wanting to find something different. After lots of looking and a little trial and error, I’m left with three: Heels Down, Horse & Style, and The Horse Magazine.

Heels Down is a digital magazine that seems to be catered more toward the younger crowd. They’re usually one of the first to cover new trends or tackle more controversial subjects, plus they have a pretty good balance of riding articles and a really solid social media presence (not to mention their fair share of great giveaways). There is definitely a lot of variety. The magazine is downloadable each month via their app to your smart phone or tablet for $4.99 per issue, or $3.99 per issue if you have a subscription (there’s a one month free trial period so you can check it out first if you want). It’s fun, it’s cool, and it’s current… perfect for the 18-30 crowd (or, uh… 33yo’s who are pretending like they aren’t as old as they are. Ahem.).

Horse & Style is, in a word, posh. It’s printed on sturdy paper with a thick cover, has TONS of show photos, and definitely gives an overall high end, elegant feel. They do rider interviews, style guides, articles about horse shows, equestrian vacation destinations, book reviews, Q&A with a sports psychologist, etc etc. It has a very grown-up, sophisticated feel to it… and it’s just ridiculously gorgeous, cover to cover. They too have a good social media presence, with lots of horse show photos and monthly giveaways (I won one!). You can also page through it here.

Then there’s The Horse Magazine, an Australian publication that I’ve mentioned on here before (and now you can read it online here). They focus a lot on what’s going on in the show world internationally, plus have riding articles and a good dose of breeding stuff thrown in. My favorite thing about them is that they’re never afraid to be blunt, even if it’s controversial. It’s not all rainbows and butterflies, which is really refreshing.

I love all three publications, for very different reasons. If you want something that feels young and fun, I think Heels Down is worth the download. If you want something decadent to hit your mailbox every other month that you can slowly and indulgently page through, Horse & Style certainly fits that criteria. If you want something honest that will get you thinking, The Horse is a great read. If you like variety, read all 3.

I used to subscribe to Warmbloods Today, a US based breeding-centered magazine, but let my subscription lapse for some reason I can’t remember. I really should renew that, because it was a cool magazine if you’re into the breeding stuff… I’ve given a gift subscription to a few people for Christmas before, too. And of course since I’m a USEA member I get their magazine, Eventing USA, which is free with membership or you can buy back issues. It’s actually pretty good.

What about you… what are your favorite horse magazines?