Good Pony

Eddie is such a good horse! We had a very successful (if not a tad too hot and exhausting) weekend in Franklin back on June 30/July 1. I am ashamed to say that I don't ride my horse everyday. There are some very good reasons for that, mainly that my horse knows his job, so I don't ride him into the ground here at home. I also do not jump my horse more than once or twice every 2 weeks at home, since the ground is hard in the summer, and he knows how to jump, so my jumping, and jumping, and jumping him for no reason is unnecessary and only wears on his precious joints and bones. The last (and most prominent) reason for my not riding everyday is that it's hot in the summer...and I'm basically lazy. Believe me, though: Eddie DOESN'T COMPLAIN.

We are planning to move up to novice this fall at the Kentucky Horse Park in October (we're jumping a novice-level cross country jump in the above picture, and it seems pretty much a non-issue), so I need to really spend more time in the saddle, to justify our move up and to give us a better chance of success at a new, more challenging level. I'm always more motivated as an event approaches, and as the late summer sweltering heat gives way to cooler and cooler fall temps, then I'm hoping I'll be out with my guys more and more frequently. Maybe if I set weekly or bi-weekly goals for us, I'll be more diligent, but my current goals really are just to enter a few events per year, go with my friends, and have fun (how we end up in the placings is usually an added bonus, since I don't really compete to win). But, like the title of this post says, Eddie is a "good pony," so we'll see how it goes!