(source: chestofbooks.com)
(source: http://www.equinenow.com/)
(source: www.allposters.com)
(source: http://www.iscra.nl/n2066.htm)
Like pretty much every girl I love horses- make that horses, ponies, donkeys, mules... I started riding hunter/jumper when I was five and participated in my first horse show by the time I was 6. Although I haven't ridden in a while (I've been sidelined after I got bucked off a couple years ago and shattered my rotator cuff) if anyone asks me what my hobbies are I find myself saying 'horseback riding'. I figure it is something I will always go back to and you bet my future babies will be horsemen/women. Some of my fondest memories are of riding my horse Mickey on my trainer's family ranch out by Krause Springs. After a day of lessons we would ride to the corner store off 71 to get candy, cokes and various other junk foods. On particularly hot summer days we would go down to the lake and swim with the horses. Mickey was 17.2 hands which is huge however he was one of the most gentle creatures I've ever known. He loved swimming and would run into the water with me riding bareback. When it got deep enough we would both become weightless while he swam and I floated off his back clinging onto this mane so as not to fall off whenever he decided to come busting back out of the water. Wet horses like to roll, even with you on them, and so it became a valuable lesson knowing how quickly jump off whenever I felt him falling to his knees. I also became an expert at the bareback mount which was essential to survival on long weekends out at the ranch- especially on a monster like Mickey. The biggest dream in my life is to have a ranch big enough to house my pair of paint horses, a clydesdale, a Belgian draft horse, 2 miniature donkeys and a mule I can ride western. Oh and lets just throw a shetland pony in there for the kids. Don't get me wrong- we'll have longhorns and buffalo as well but for now lets focus on the horses.
