I'm gonna try my hardest.

So basically, in the last few years, this blog has become set on the back burner. It sits there, I know its there, but I don't have the ambition to do anything about it. I am going to give it my best shot this year. I have a big year planned for the big grey thoroughbred and I. He doesn't know it yet...
Last year was my best year with the big grey thoroughbred. I didn't start out the year thinking that it would be. Can we be honest here? Yes, I think we can...I was pretty scared that I was done with him. Our first few rides of the year had me in tears. Big sobbing, hysterical, body shaking tears. I got on him in April. DUMB. My riding instructor always told me NEVER ride in April. But I didn't heed her advice and mounted up. DUMB. The ride started out great, and just as I started thinking, "GOD I LOVE THIS HORSE! HE IS THE MOST PERFECT AND MAGICAL HORSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD"... That's when he decided. "You know what? It's time that I must train for the Kentucky Derby! Never mind the fact I am a washed up 13 year old EX racehorse...I MUST TRAIN!" and there I was on a hot, prancing, fire breathing dragon. I hopped off and sure enough, there I was leading a unhandled 2 year old stud colt down the dirt road back to my house. He was prancing sideways, and snorting and screaming his freaking head off and I was in tears, swearing up and down, hating him and hating myself more for letting him get my number like that.
My second attempt was much similar and at that point my husband said "That's it. This horse is out of here. I'm not going to keep around a horse that you are too scared to ride." I was heartbroken, but starting to believe that maybe he was right, and it was time for the big grey thoroughbred to move on. Fast forward a little while, we sent Cash, our beautiful palomino to the trainer. We had been working our asses off on making sure he was going to be sound. He was diagnosed with Navicular. (F WORD!!!!) and we had been dealing with trying to keep him rideable. We had him adjusted, and we had special shoes, and we had injections and we contacted wizards and fairies and unicorns to try and heal him.  And he was sound and looking REALLY good, but he was bucking when we saddled him up. Yes we had some saddle fitting done on him and we got a saddle that fit him really nice. But when my husband threw his foot into the stirrup, we had a bucking bronco on his hand. So him not wanting to get hurt...and me definitely not wanting to get hurt... we shipped him off to our awesome trainer.
Fast forward 3 days after dropping him off "yeah, you guys need to come and get your horse. He is SUPER lame." F WORDS!!! That's nice. So glad that we have a spot booked at a hard to get into trainer for 30 days and the horse lasted 3 days. So we asked if we could swap out horses and bring George. The trainer said game on.
So we swapped out horses. There was a crowd waiting when the big grey thoroughbred showed up. Word got around that a 16.3hh, off track thoroughbred who won almost $400K was showing up that evening, so when we got there were folks standing all around, waiting to get a look at my handsome devil of a horse. And sure enough, fire breathing dragon stepped off the trailer.
We got a call a few days later from the trainer saying that the big grey thoroughbred was a LOT of horse. He couldn't get him to just walk out calmly when they went on group rides. Basically he said that the big grey thoroughbred was an ass. He wasn't sure he was going to be a good trail horse...ever. Heart. Smashed. There went all of my dreams of riding off into the sunset. But wait a second....rewind to the previous year...I did in fact use him as a trail horse... numerous times...and he was a rock star. WTF trainer? WTF. He did admit that the big grey thoroughbred was super athletic, and that he is a horse that needs a job.
A few days later, the trainer called with an update. He said they had started to break him down a bit. he was not walking calm-ish when they went out on group rides. He also said that George had also ripped down a sheet of plywood in his stall because he was bored. Awesome.
When we picked George up after a few weeks I got to try him out and he was a bit 'up' still but he was leaps and bounds better than when I dropped him off.
That weekend we went trail riding and he was fantastical. I had my horse back. HOORAY...We had so many awesome rides and adventures. I need to really write about them. Because they were magical. I only briefly talked about them last year. But Maybe if I do decide to keep up with this blog...I can fill ya in... But this year I am going to try and keep on top of things and keep this place updated. I have so many cool adventures planned.

But until they happen and until I can go back and talk about last years awesome adventures here are ..Pictures.

BEST PICTURE EVER!!

My old western horse.

Best ride with my best horse.

He is a crappy jumper...

We did a thing!!

Riding in a halter and lead rope in an arena filled with horses. it happened.