… to be an equestrian

When I was really young, I went to visit my grandparents in North Carolina and we did horseback riding and I was like ‘I really want to try this when I get home’ so that’s how I kind of got into it. I don’t really remember a lot when I was younger, but I started really getting into it almost 3 years ago so I’ve learned starting again the second time.

My dad got really into it with me. He didn’t really, like know, anything about horses until he started taking me to the barn and hanging out with me. One of my friends that doesn’t ride horses has really gotten into it with me.

I do competitions and I really just do it for fun. I started competing in 2018.  The circuit that I do is year-round and we’re not scheduled to compete until June-ish. Normally, they’re on the weekends and we trailer out our horses.  I do jumping in my competitions so I go around my horse and get judged based on how I work with the horse. 

I’ve had a lot of ups and downs. I’ve had many times where I wanted to quit cause my confidence has just so been so low. I went through a pretty big confidence issue when I first got my horse. He was not very good, like he was still a baby. He didn’t really know a lot. I was constantly falling off and it was just a mess. 

I actually stopped horse-showing for a while because me and my horse just weren’t doing well at the time and we needed more practice to be able to do a show ring confidently. It’s very important to make connections with your horse. You and your horse are a team and you have to be able to understand to get stuff done.

When me and my horse had a really good lesson, we were able to jump bigger. When we jumped our highest, we were doing really good that summer and my trainer was like “Okay, you’re gonna jump 4 feet” and I was like “You’re kidding, right?” and I did it. It’s kind of hard to describe the feeling, but it just makes me feel so happy and it made me feel so accomplished that I was able to get over that hard herd and actually get somewhere with my horse. Being able to teach him things and where he is today really made me happy.

It’s[horse riding] that really helped me mature. I just feel like it helped me grow up a little more. I think I’ll always remember the patience that I have to put into this cause you have to be super patient to work with a giant animal like that.

I keep doing it just because it makes me happy and I can’t see myself without horses in my life. I think it just means happiness. It’s my happy place. Whenever I’m on a horse, I just forget about everything. I don’t worry about school. I don’t worry about friend drama. I’m just worried about what’s under me and not anything else.