Everything you do is work. Everything you do takes time. So how do you decide if it’s worth doing? Well I think it’s different for everyone but the best piece of advice my dad ever gave was this

“Do what you love”

I know I know how cliche and obvious, but it honestly is true if you do what you love you’ll be happy it’s as simple as that.

Now I’ve probably made it clear that I love horses and horseback riding by now, and it’s pretty obvious that it’s my passion.

But that doesn’t mean it’s all rainbows and butterfly’s 24/7. There’s work, there are good days, there are bad days, there are days I wanna scream, there are days I want to jump for joy.

I’ve faced hardships and setbacks and I’ve had to overcome fears because of this sport but that’s why I love it, it makes me a better person.

This past summer I had to literally face my fears it all began one Sunday during my group lesson with my three best friends. We were doing a jumping course and I’d just gone over the last jump and was going past the bottom right corner of the ring, Darla had been fresh all lesson but I’d been handling when all of sudden as we went past the corner she starts throwing huge bucks, putting her head down and taking off, and before I can even react I’m quite literally flying through the air and I land flat on my back on the hard ground.

The wind gets knocked out of me and I lay there, not moving because I can’t breathe and I don’t know what to do, I sit up and try to breathe but I can’t it’s like my lungs won’t work, my brain won’t tell my body to breathe. My trainer comes over to me and tells me to put my head between my legs and take deep breathes when I finally regain my ability to breathe I look up and see Darla standing there waiting for me. She was staring at me expectantly her big eyes watching my every move. She walks over to me and nuzzles me as if confused as to why I was on the ground.

I take a deep breath and I slowly stand up, I lead her back over the mounting block and I get back on. I walk around and I feel my muscles still tense with fear because I really didn’t want to fall off again, I didn’t want to have to feel that fear again because this was something I loved I couldn’t fear it.

Every experience you have on a horse is different and every experience shapes you as a rider, I still get tense everytime a horse starts to buck with me because I really never want to fall off because of that again, I was sore for weeks after that. But what I do know is this no matter what happens I’m always going to get back on the horse, I’m always going to work to make sure I’m better prepared for next time something does go wrong, I’m always going to keep riding no matter what this sport throws at me because it’s my passion it’s what I do and it’s what makes me, me and I’m always going to trust the horse I’m riding because they bring so much happiness and joy to my life.

#rideonstate