♣Ambitious♣

Favorite show picture Favorite non-show picture Favorite thing you bought Referring to my saddle rack here Favorite moment on horseback No images, but galloping Duke along the grassy trails was really fun. Favorite moment out of the saddle Favorite “between the ears” picture Favorite horse book or article Do Boots and Wraps Overheat Horses’ Legs? Favorite horse ridden (or groomed/cared for) aside from your own Favorite funny picture of your horse No funny pics this year :( Favorite fence that you successfully jumped or movement that you conquered No pics of fences either because that video is on my trainer's phone :/ Favorite horse meme or funny picture So funny I keep a tab open on my phone with this image so I can show it to people. Created by artist  Sean Kirkpatrick .

2021 was the year that horses took a back seat to, well, everything else. It started with potential horse shows and ended with timidly cruising around 2'-0" courses. Eh, such is life. I finally said screw it with Blackjack and started having fun. At first, I committed to riding more bareback because it became a necessity if I ever wanted to have a decent enough relationship with him to go to a show. As time progressed, and I absorbed more hearsay, it coupled with my own observations, and I made the decision that I wasn't going to put Blackjack through the rigors of being a show horse. It wasn't fair, and even if I was underscoring his abilities, the horse is just as happy being stuffed with treats as he is jumping around at a horse show. There was a question of whether Liberty would be a potential show horse for me, and she could have been had she not been injured during her prison break attempt. Oh well, she too became a fun and exciting challenge this year. I'm p...

My gifts have landed with their respective parties for the annual Blogger Gift Exchange. Thank you Alberta Equest for hosting! And thank you for accepting my very very late submittal . . . I usually like to wait until it's actually Christmas (or at least close) to open presents. This year, however, I'll be traveling via Spirit Airlines, so definitely no extra space under the seat for a box. I received a lovely box from Anxiety at A (oof, relatable)! First item was a bag of homemade cookies which I'm not 100% sure if they were for horses or humans. That being said, I finished the whole bag, and I'm alive to tell the tale, so I'll say they were for humans. No picture because they were just that good. The pièce de résistance is a gorgeous saddle pad. It seemed simple enough when I opened the box. I saw purple and thought, Sweet! Then I took it out of the box, unfolded it, and . . . guys . . . guys . . . Wish y'all could have seen the excitement on my face. I was ...

After my first lesson on Destello, Trainer T and I got to talking about me leasing one of her horses. She explained her pricing and let me know that Destello would be a good fit but that she has one other horse that maybe could possibly work. His only issue is that he can get wild over fences; she describes it as a switch flipping in his head for no apparent reason. I filed that info away, certain that I'd be leasing Destello in the near future and kind of wrote off that other horse. Mind you, that conversation was back in August. So then a couple weeks ago, after I had already decided to take weekly lessons, she had a scheduling conflict. Destello was going to be at a show the same day as my lesson. She asked if I was okay with riding this other mystery horse, and I said yes because literally why not. She didn't feel that he would be a good fit for me over fences (for obvious reasons) but I genuinely wanted to give it a shot and see how things went. Here's Fuego. He's ...

After my last pass at designing a barn around eco-centric principles, I decided to take another stab at it in a much simpler way. This time around, I decided to actually use Florida as the hypothetical location. I had a quick zoom call with Dr. Deupi, and we went through some examples from his book that he felt were appropriate. Image via Simón Vélez The most applicable precedent is Caballerizas Sanint in Pereira, Columbia. It was designed by architects Simón Vélez, Felipe Sanint, and Marcelo Villegas. It doesn't take any intuition to see how this project fits into Vélez's portfolio . Villegas is also a huge fan of bamboo and published New Bamboo: Architecture and Design . The main portion of this stable that related back to a Floridian environment is the use of a high, pitched ceiling to allow for adequate airflow. One of the principles of passive cooling is forcing airflow through differences in temperature, having multiple openings, and having a varying size in those opening...

So my first lesson on Destello was, as I said, a lot. Trainer T had me jump him around a 2'-0" course. We knocked just about everything. I felt embarrassed, to say the least. My second lesson, I was determined to improve. She had me ride him in a kimberwicke because his usual bit was taken. I didn't think it would be an issue, but I noticed immediately that he wasn't as soft, and it felt like I had no gas in the tank. Destello is normally on the sluggish side (which seems to be a thing with mustangs), so having him feel even slower than expected was just . . . uggghhh. That second lesson, Trainer T gave me more feedback on the flatwork, and we began to address the stiffness for a little bit before heading onto the jumping. The jumps started out fine. We made it easily through a 7 stride line that was an issue during the first lesson. Things were going okay; it was definitely a little shaky and there were still areas that needed improvement, but I was getting over every...

 

The process of leaving my last barn was a bit of a back and forth and took longer than I wanted it to. While I wasn't riding much towards the end, I was still enjoying myself and made it out at least three times per week just to wash Sax's fungus-prone body. I got pretty comfortable with riding Sax, Blackjack, Satin, and Liberty bareback. I even went on a trail ride on one of the boarder's horses and got to gallop him along one of the local canals. It was great. All this to say that I wasn't in a huge rush. I had found a space that I was comfortable with for the time being, even if it was still a cruddy environment overall. Towards the end of the summer, I started keeping an eye out for any lease opportunities. One day, I scrolled by a post that had been shared across multiple SoFlo groups about a Friesian gelding for lease. If I'm being honest, I thought it was a scam at first. The post didn't have a ton of information and the OP's Facebook page was rather ...

 

Since graduating and entering the ACE industry full time, a lot of the "fun" has disappeared from architecture. That's not to say that I don't enjoy the projects I work on. Trust me, I get to work on some fun projects with awesome clients. However, the really fun projects often don't appear unless you find a client with, uhhh, really fun money, if that makes sense. Even my wealthiest clients often have sticker shock. To quell my disappointment with capitalism, I decided to swing back to my roots and get into designing horse barns again. This time though, I'm more invested in taking an environmentally friendly approach to it. And especially after dealing with some horrible design decisions at my last barn, passive cooling has been a huge focus for me. Like . . . . . you can't fix bad design with chicken fans, lmao. You also save a significant amount of money (upfront and/or long-term) when you design to the environment you're in. So this is the beginn...

  Author's Note: This endearing moment was before she refused to get on the truck.

So, where do I begin . . . Life updates: I'm still depressed. Not as bad as a few months ago, but I'm, like, genuinely having a quarter-life crisis, and I wish I was joking. I moved to my very first apartment on my own to be closer to my job. I'm trying to find a new job. I'm applying to Ph.D. programs, and Los Angeles is at the top of my list. My sister made me install Grammarly and suddenly I feel a lot less confident about all 500+ ramblings that I have forced y'all to read over the last several years. I left my barn. After my last welcome back post, I did end up having a conversation with my trainer. It only made things worse. I got caught between my trainer and Satin's owner, and at first, it seemed that they just did not understand each other and could not get on the same page. Which is fair, and makes sense due to the emotional weight of the vet findings. As things unraveled, it became clear that my trainer was not honest about her knowledge of the situat...

Over the past few years, I've enjoyed posting something in "celebration" of Mental Health Awareness Month. It's always a good check in for myself, and I hope that it's a nice check in for readers as well. The plan for this year was to write about my experience with trichotillomania . However, the topic is a bit raw, and it would probably add more distress to my current situation. So things are staying light and a little vague this year but still touching on something that's been on my mind for a while. There seems to be a contradiction when discussing human emotions and when they are allowed to manifest relative to horses. On the one hand, horses are pretty commonly viewed as an emotional outlet for a number of equestrians regardless of discipline or competition level. Out of every shoddy coping mechanism I've ever had, riding has been the most engaging, enjoyable, and fairly consistent. Not to mention, it's rarely been harmful. As I've gotten ol...