I'm a bad horsie blogger...

Hi guys,

Sorry for my random absence. I just felt a little overwhelmed and a lot depressed since I have so little opportunity to ride with my horse 2 hours away and no indoor arena. Anyway, I'm over it and back to my horsie blogging.

So what has happened in the last couple months?

1. Generally studying my face off at university. Yep, I've been busy, but I really enjoy most of my classes, especially reproductive physiology. For example, today in lab we dissected cow udders. It was a little gross (smelled like death/rotten milk), but soooo interesting. I will never forget for the rest of my life what a gland cistern looks like! I think if I get into vet school, I may specialize into reproductive stuff.

2. I got to job shadow a local vet during reading week in February (3 1/2 days). No horsie stuff (*sad face*), but lots of other cool stuff. I got to watch a kitty spay, help do urinalysis, watch semen testing of bulls and even preg check so cows. It was very cool, especially since they were only a couple months from calving, so I could feel heads! I'm definitely going to ask if I can come back and job shadow some more in the summer.

3. I went to the NRCHA (national reined cow horse association) judge's clinic. There's a very good chance I will never show in cow horse classes (although my dad is continually trying to convince me), but I find it super interesting to learn how to see things from a judge's perspective. I learned a lot, so it was definitely worth it. They even let me and another girl come free since we're part of the university judging club (it probably helps that my dad is on the board of directors)! For those of you who don't know about cow horse, here is a video of my parents' stallion, CD Ben at the Canadian Supreme in the hackamore class, where he was the open champion (sorry, had to brag just a little!).



4. I've ridden once or twice since my last blog post. No major wrecks, no major breakthroughs. Just hoe-hum, trying to get through winter without losing my mind due to lack of riding!

But I do have some other exciting news! My dad and I sometimes trailer over to a neighbour's indoor arena, where quite a few other people come to ride. I'm always the only one who rides in an english saddle (it is cattle country, after all). Anyway, I've kind of gotten to know another girl around my age who rides there and gives lessons to some younger girls. She's a barrel racer, miles away from what Scarface and I do, but she is a very pretty rider and knows her stuff pretty well. Anyways, she helps out giving clinic to a local 4-H club once in a while. This club wants to put on an english riding and showmanship clinic and she asked if she could give the club my name. I said okay and now I'm going to be giving my very first clinic on Saturday! I'm super excited and super nervous! The leader said that the girls are fairly novice, so I think we'll focus on flatwork equitation (which is what I know best anyway). I'm think body position, picking up diagonals without looking and making nice round circles, but I'll kind of play it by ear once I get there. I'm so excited, I feel like I'm taking a big step within my riding career. (Just so you know, this is just a volunteer thing, so I'm certainly not claiming to be a professional or anything!)