Catch Up

Waaaaaaaay tooooo many things have happened since my last post in…..November.

I’ll touch down on a few.

February 3 turned into the worst day of my life when my beloved HotRod had to be laid to rest do to a ruptured collateral ligament in his left hind leg. The same leg that had just healed from a sprain. He will be forever missed by anyone who ever met him or heard about him. He was the best horse I could have ever had the opportunity to love.

The loss of HotRod led me to borrow a lovely horse named Betty to use for high school equestrian team. We ended our regular season with the top spot in trail and working rancher; the number two spot in western equitation; number three spot in in-hand obstacle relay and the fourth spot in English equitation. We went onto state in Lynden and placed well in all events.

In March during my finals week and spring break my parents and I drove out to Missouri to buy a new horse. We went out and back in five days. Talk about one fast trip! We left on a Sunday around 1pm, got to Westphalia, Missouri on Tuesday afternoon. Spent a few hours riding Chuck, visiting with his owner and her family, learning about their fifth generation family farm, they raise hogs and cattle. We stayed the night in Jefferson City. Wednesday mid-morning we picked up Chuck and headed home. We got home Friday night around 10. On the way out we spent a night in Burley, Idaho and Hayes, Kansas. On the way home we stayed in Mitchell, South Dakota and Billings, Montana. Spending nights on the way home was a big trickier because where we stayed there needed to be a place nearby for Chuck to stay. We planned the route home accordingly. Chuck is a 2009 American Quarter Horse Dun Gelding.

This summer I have also been riding Cara’s horse Daisy. We have done two shows together and been top three in all our events. I will be using her to compete on at the Grant County Fair in August. I also plan to use her for high school equestrian team for my senior year.

Chuck and I had our first ABRA show a few weeks ago and we walked away from it with a shiny new belt buckle for winning the “Bonnie Rea Memorial 17&Under Western Pleasure” class. Bonnie Rea was my high school equestrian team advisor my freshman year. Going into my sophomore year Bonnie passed away suddenly. She was very involved with horses in our county and wanted every youth to succeed.

I also finished my first year of college. I even was successful in a watercolor painting class. That was a stressful last week. Yikes. In the fall I will be taking 18 credits and in the winter I will probably have to take 20. The plan is for me to graduate from Royal High School as well as Big Bend Community College come June.

Now maybe I won’t “forget” that I have a blog and will get pictures posted soon…..