About Me

After my brief introductory post yesterday to the world of part-boarding, I feel like it's time to introduce myself!

I'm Essie, a 25-year-old from Ontario, Canada. I have been riding horses off and on for just over 15 years. I ride English, and for the past 10 years, I have been focusing on the hunters. I have ridden a huge variety of horses in the past, from Quarter Horses to Thoroughbreds, Tennessee Walkers to Trakehners.

My first experiences part-boarding a horse came when I was around 15 years old. I worked and volunteered at a therapeutic riding centre, where I was invited to exercise a 14.3hh Tennessee Walker gelding. This horse was a stubborn little guy who was carrying a lot of extra weight and an allergy to picking up the correct canter lead. With time and patience, I whittled a lot of the weight away and finally got him picking up the correct lead...at least most of the time. Because I was still a minor, I had to be accompanied by an adult every time that I rode. It only took one winter of sitting in a frigid indoor arena for my mother to nix the idea of me part-boarding again until I was over 18. As I waited anxiously for this birthday to arrive, I took weekly lessons at a nearby riding school.

Unfortunately, my turning 18 coincided with my going away to university. That meant that riding got put on the back burner while I got a couple of degrees. As my time at university drew to an end, I knew that I had to start riding again, and contacted my old riding coach to set up some lessons. It wasn't long before I fell in love with the big, goofy Thoroughbred gelding that I was riding in my lessons. When I secured a temporary job in my field, I decided that the time had come for me to part-board again. I decided to go ahead and part-board the Big Guy.

Guy taught me a lot about myself and my strengths and weaknesses as a rider. We brought each other a long way, and I had big plans to enter him in a series of summer schooling shows that would be not just his first outdoor shows, but my first shows ever. Unfortunately, the best laid plans often go to waste. Guy was calm, careful and spook-proof at home, but was not the same horse off property. He was also underweight, and when his owner learned that I wanted to show him in the summer, she knew that he was too ribby to take out in public. He was fit, but needed to gain at least 100lbs to look truly respectable (a fact I had struggled with ever since I began riding him, hoping that the money I spent part-boarding him would be put back into his care, thus improving his quality of life). It became pretty clear very quickly that Guy was calm and laid back because he didn't have the energy to be anything else. As he was finally started regularly on grain, he became stronger and much more unpredictable.

Problems at the lesson barn (with horse-keeping standards and negative people) and two major accidents involving Guy (I was hurt in both cases, not him) lead to me deciding to leave the barn that I had been riding at off-and-on for 10 years. I was on the search for both a new barn to ride at, and a new horse to part-board.

I will talk about my search for a barn and horse in later posts. Suffice it to say that I found a great new barn and an awesome new horse. Brady is a 6-year-old Thoroughbred gelding that I will be part-boarding in the near future. Unfortunately, I am still recovering from a serious injury incurred while riding Guy, so I can't start riding Brady just yet. He is a challenging ride without being dangerous, and my goal is to improve my riding and work towards having him ready for schooling shows next summer (2014).

Once I am back in the saddle, this blog will revolve around my experiences part-boarding Brady, and my relationship with his owner, Bea. Until then, I'll likely be talking about the good and bad sides of my time spent with Guy, sharing some information that all part-boarders should know, and my opportunities to begin to build a relationship with Brady from the ground.

I look forward to sharing with you!

Essie