Friday, February 24, 2012

Hobby Horse Blog Hop


Dreaming, over at Living a Dream, has started a new blog hop for use horse lovers to reach out and meet each other.  It's called the Hobby Horse Blog Hop and each week she'll be posting prompts for us to write about.  Since Estes is gone for the winter, my blog fodder is running thin, so this will be good for me keep in the blogging groove.

This week's prompts included the questions:
  1. Tell us about your first horse, real or imagined.
  2. What lesson(s) did you learn from a horse?
  3. What riding discipline intrigues you the most?
Estes is my first real horse.  I love her almost as much as I love my husband, which is one of the reasons I married him.  If I couldn't find anyone to love more than I loved my horse, I would have stuck with my horse.  Estes was a fire-breathing dragon that I fell absolutely, head-over-heels in love with back in 2004.  She became mine in 2009.
Photo courtesy: Rachel at Once Upon a Miracle

I did have a plastic Breyer horse when I was younger that did lots and lots of laps around the make-shift barrels in my bedroom and I had a favorite tree limb at our cabin that was just the right size for a five year-old's pretend horse.  I put many miles on the branch that stuck out horizontally from the tree and then arced upward like a horse's neck.  The Bionic Cowgirl knew that I'd either be riding my tree horse or flying my invisible helicopter when we were at the cabin.  Luckily, they were right next to each other.  In fact, I used the seat of my helicopter (a rock at just the right height) to mount my trusty steed.

As far as lessons learned from horses, there are too many to list.  I don't even know where to begin.  Every encounter with a horse is a learning opportunity and I've been lucky in that most of my lessons have been positive.

I know very little about the different disciplines and have even less desire to compete in any of them. Does that make me a snob? Or a reverse snob?  I'm a trail rider through-and-through.  Not a competitive trail rider, not an endurance rider.  Simply a let's-get-on-our-horse-and-go-explore kind of trail rider.  Estes is game for anything, so we're a good fit.


My question:  Where is your favorite place to ride? Or where do you think would be your favorite place to ride?


5 comments:

Unknown said...

I can't wait until I can get Shy out on the trails. . .we both need some work though. That is pretty much all I want to do. . .and learn to drive.

Dreaming said...

I am so glad that you joined the blog hop!
I didn't realize that Estes was your first horse. I've read a lot about her... but just never figured that part out.
How refreshing, also, to find someone with an interest in plain, simple trail riding! I used to want to compete and earn ribbons... but now, like you, I just want to enjoy my horse(s).

Dreaming said...

I forgot to answer your question:
Hmmm, my favorite place to ride - hmmm, that's tough. When I was in High school I lived by a small park that had riding trails all around it. There were never any other folks on the trail. No hikers. No bikers. No dirt bikes. It was heavenly!

Once Upon an Equine said...

Estes sounds like she is your perfect "first real horse". You got it right on the first try. That's wonderful! I love trail riding too.

Momma Fargo said...

My favorite place to ride was out in the prairie or hills alone so I could be at peace with my horse! I also like to ride with friends, but when I was a kid, I rode by myself and also at my place I ride alone. Great blog hop!