MyRidingTimeline
Okay well this is my riding from when i started to the current time.
ENJOY, there is a lot of bad riding in here.
Above is a picture of me riding a horse named Kidd at Lord stirling stable in nj. Thats where my riding all started.
Above is me riding in a little show on chocolate chip, another horse from LSS.
Ignore the cameltoe! hahah
The above 3 pictures are when i was riding at Palermo show stable. This mare is rosita, i loved her. She was an amazing pony. She taught me to jump (kinda, i was pretty shitty at it). I stayed at palermo for 1 1/2 years to 2 years but then i stopped because it was too far away. I was really sad because i loved palermo a lot and my trainer. I was jumping oxers with rosita and jumping other fun things with other lesson horses.
Then I stopped for a year, then started and tried a barn called Crewe hill (which i hated). I have no pictures from crewe hill though.
Then i stopped again and started, and i rode at Backer Farm for a summer. I rode with a man named Jeff, i didn’t like him too much. No pictures for that either.
Okay below are going to be pictures of me riding at camp. I rode at camp for 4 summers i believe. Theses pictures were the last year i did the summer YMCA ranch camp. I liked it, but looking back at it, it was kind of dangerous. This is when my first close call fall happened. They put me on the horse that you will see in the pictures below, he had no clue how to jump and i dint really have a clue either. Well his back feet got caught on the jumped and he flipped over and almost landed on top of me. Luckily i rolled away. Anyway in the pictures below you can tell i have no clue what the fuck im doing.
Okay now cue in Backer Farm and Toni (my ex riding instructor that is a crazy bitch, but you will hear that story soon why she is a crazy bitch).
Me riding Fiyero in a lesson, clearly im not very good.
This is me riding Q-pid which toni thought would be good for me. He took off and stuff with other people so i don’t know why in hells name he would be good for a timid (after bad fall at camp) beginnerish rider like me.
Now cue in Fiyero. I loved this big chunky asshole of a QH. He really loved me too (look up info on his page). I leased him for two months i believe? I actually got significantly better with him, i was still a bad rider though. I had no clue what i was doing, toni was a shitty trainer. hahah
NOW this is when i bought Beau. Toni thought i was ready for my own horse, she acted like she knew everything about horses and we went horse shopping. I saw beau on the internet and showed him to her. We went to go see him, from what i know now he was NOT a good decision, but back then i had no clue on what to look for and stuff, so i made the wrong decision and trusted toni. Beau was at the time named Copper and he was from a dealer. I fell in love with him. He acted so calm (which i know now was because he was very under muscle and under weight) and prob was ridden ALOT. I got him when he was only 6, he had no papers, and was $7,500 (toni told us we should never buy a horse for over 10k which was the stupidest thing ever now that i think about it). Well Toni called my dad saying he was perfect for me, so my dad made the decision (even though he wanted me to get a big warmblood) to buy Beau for me.
Me riding beau a couple of week after i got him. I got him Dec. 6, 2010.
Well Backer had no indoor so i couldn’t ride for the rest of the winter. Toni found out she was pregnant and asked my current trainer (who is amazing!) Sharon Keane to train toni’s lessoners.
Sharon and i hit it off from the start. We got along really well, and i told her how wonderful and calm beau was. Well on our second lesson together, beau took off really bad on me and i fell off. That was the start to beau’s take offs. Sharon did not know beau well so she worked me into a much better riders and started working with beau to see what he was like. I became a stiff rider because of being nervous that beau would take off on me. My first show with beau was on birthday, April 3 2011. Then i constantly better with sharons training and went to more shows which included Garden State horse show. I actually placed in that show! I was so proud. Beau would take off on me time to time but i was always in control and would sit him on his ass. I was just as stubborn as him, and had just as much heart as him.
BTW most of the photos from here on were taken by Melanie Ruskin, she is an amazing photographer. If you live in northern/mid nj and want photos professionally taken i will give you her number.
And then the day came. It was two days before i was going to leave for florida and i had a lesson on beau. This would be the last day i would ever ride him. So he did a little take off on me and i sat him on his ass and cantered him away. Sharon was like show him who’s boss and really canter him to the point where you have a good controlled gallopish canter, i did and beau got mad i was taking control and took off really bad. I stayed on and had his head literally turned to the outside to try and get him to stop. He just gave me the middle finger and kept galloping. I went twice around and lost my stirrups and realized he was not going to stop, so i bailed. When i bailed, i fell under him and his hoof nicked me in the face and hit me in the head. It was the scariest moment of my life. My nose was bleeding and the corner of my eye was tore up and bleeding. It was such close call, i got so lucky because an centimeter closer to my eye and i would prob not be able to see out of that eye. I also landed on my back, which hurt the most! My back is still stiff to this day. Anyway so i got sent to the hospital, my trainer sharon and my dad were so scared. I got to the hospital and got 16 stitches to my eye, and x rayed my back which nothing was wrong with my back luckily. What was shattered the most was my confidence and the strong heart i used to have to try hard. Well my dad told sharon to train beau to see if this could be fixed, sharon tried but she decided with my parents beau would not be a good fit for me. We were too similar, we would fight to much. So it was decided to sell beau. The first thing toni said to sharon was “i hope they don’t blame this on me”. She is a selfish bitch.
I started riding again, terrified of being taken off with. I knew i couldn’t give up riding though, it was my life. My trainer found lessors for beau to fully cover him so that we could continue to train him to increase his price. For a short time i started looking again for a horse. Sharon took me to see one who was a very sweet horse, just not for me. The horse wouldn’t do anything wrong, but it had a lot of power under her which was how beau felt before he would take off. Sharon drove me home and said “I think you should do a lot more lessons before we look at horses again, i want you to get your confidence up and also get your riding ability back to what it used to be. But we will look at one more if another comes along that i think would be good for you. CUE in derby. My trainer was talking to another trainer about me and the trainer said she had the perfect confidence builder with the best mind that would prob be good for me. We went to go try out derby, plus a tb Emil (these horses were located at Redfield farm in nj) though was a good confidence builder. As soon as i saw derby i fell in love. He was a 17hh dark bay dutch warmblood with an adorable snip on his nose. As soon as i got on him i fell even more for him. His canter was a big stride but slow and i felt so safe on him. He took great care of me and would just pack me over the jumps. My dad saw him nd actually rode him and fell in love too. My dad was petting him and looked into his eyes and said “i always wanted a horse like you”. Sharon also loved me and him together. We got along really well. I rode him a couple of times in lessons to make sure he was for sure the horse for me and he ended up being perfect for me. My dad finally said yes we can buy him. I was so happy i almost cried. I loved this horse, he was practically my dream horse. The owners and trainers of the horse said he has never had injections and was in perfect condition (thats what they thought at least). So when the day of the vet check came along sharon was like “don’t worry this will go well, he practically floats when he moves, i have not seen one thing that was sticky on him or look wrong”. Well turns out when we had x rays he had navicular in both his fronts, along with ring bone in both his fronts, he also had a sore back (which we knew from the beginning but thought that was his only issue), possible OCD and also possible neurological. I was so upset… i almost sobbed. I knew though he was not worth 25k, and that being the most we would pay, my dad would def not take the risk or sharon wouldn’t take the risk of buying him unless the price got drastically reduced to what it should be. My dad said if the price goes down to 10k we will buy him. Well the owners said that they would lower it to 23k because they really liked me and i could lease him and pay if off by month. Well sharon talked to the vet again and decided derby was not worth that amount of money. So we didn’t buy him. Sharon wanted to find me a horse that wasn’t only sane but also sound.
So sharon made a deal with me, i would lease or ride in lessons fro three months and i could start looking for horses again. She wanted me to get my confidence up and to get better before she looked again for me. CUE in Leopold<3. He’s my current lease. I have been leasing him since November of 2011. He has brought my confidence up ALOT, and has taught me how to actually ride. He isn’t the easiest, he’s the biggest push ride and is really stubborn. He makes you actually have to ask right for everything which is really good. I love him.
Well sharon and i wanted to move barns. Sharon found Blue crest where she now teaches all her lessons. I love blue crest and was really excited to move. Since i thought (key word thought) i was good friends with the managers of backer (pete and toni), they would be okay with me leaving and would be civil. WELL shit went down. They started telling people how im so spoiled and how i prob wouldn’t pay my board. WHICH btw i have never not payed my board. They also lost my contract and beau lost wight, so i should NOT of payed full board when i was there for only 9 days of december. Well finally came the day to leave, i was so excited to get the fuck out of there. Well they didn’t feed or give hay to beau that day or let him out side because we were going to pay them the board that day. FUCKING crazy heads. So my mom was like how about we come half way between each other to make it fair for both sides, and toni acted like a bitch. So my mom (who is an angel and never gets mad) went off on toni, saying how she is very unprofessional (which she is) and how she is lucky we never even talked to her about her making the horrible decision of buying beau for me. So she went up to my trainer and was like beau is not allowed to leave (she is crazy) and she started crying. God it was just so dramatic. SO i had to go up to toni to talk to her about why she made me feel uncomfortable and shit. My mom ended up paying full board cause i just wanted to get beau out of there. After we left, toni went up to sharon and was like of they think they are so good, her mom waving around her coach checkbook (which my mom had actually had for like ten years!). So I will never suggest Backer farm in nj to anyone. They take shit care of the horses, and are crazy unprofessional. We got out and now im happily at blue crest with my barn family. The horses are very nicely taken care of and it has such a nice atmosphere.
On 1/22/12 i got the horse of my dreams. The horse that i will surely make my numbero uno, the one i will keep forever. His name is tommy (show name aruba, but i changed it to his race name Arama Gold). He is a dark bay 16.3 12 year old (13 year old by tb standards) OTTB. He’s a fancy boy, with a heart of GOLD. He takes care of his riders, and oh my god is so much fun to ride! He is super smooth, and a little bit of a push ride. Basically my perfect ride. His canter is to die for!
Well lets go back two weeks before i got him. It was the day before i broke up with my bf (im back together with him). It was really really tough. I was super depressed and have been depressed since november. My trainer went to go look at tommy and this warmblood cash the week before to see if they would be good matches. She also had my good friends that know me really well ride them. They tried cash first, he was handsome, they said he was my kind of look, but he was a true jumper. I want to do eq/hunters, my trainer saw that he wouldn’t be able to get the strides right for eq or hunters. He also was a tad lame. Also i like push rides, well he was the opposite. My friends said he’s nothing special and my trainer agreed. So he was a no. Don’t get me wrong cash was a cute horse and will make someone a great partner, just not the horse for me. Well anyway they tacked up tommy and rode him. He was something special. He is super smooth, goes into a frame beautifully, and took care of his riders. My friend Lea rode him and said as soon as she started trotting and cantering him, she told my trainer that he is the one. She felt really safe and comfortable on him, and did jumps she would usually do with a little bit of fear but with him had no fear. Then my friend em (my trainers daughter) rode him and thought he was perfect for me too. So a week later it was my turn to try tommy out.
I was really upset that day because of my bf, so i was really hoping for a miracle. Or just something to help me out of this. When i first saw him, i thought “he is a cutie!”. I mean he wasn’t my usually look, i loved warmblood. Tommy looks like a true tb. I love dark bays though, i always dreamed of owning a dark bay. So the people tacked him up and i brought him to the indoor ring and got on. I walked him, and his walk was a little faster paced then i was used too. I was expecting him to go into a fast trot when i asked. Boy was i wrong. He went into a smooth, slowish trot. I looked at my trainer and smiled and said “He’s the one!”. I was even more surprised when i got him to canter and actually really enjoyed it and wasn’t scared at all. Then i trotted a cross rail with no fear, then did a line with no fear. He took complete care of me. I could also tell his abundance of patience which is exactly what i needed. I fell instantly in love with him. When i got in the car to drive home, i started crying. Not sad crying but relieved happy crying. Finally i had something that could help me through this tough time, finally i felt happy. That was the happiest i felt in a very long time.
Well my dad and my trainer planned a surprise. I had no idea i was getting him, i thought someone else made an offer too and we wouldn’t be able to get him. So on 1/22/12, i walked into the barn with emily. I saw a trailer outside and i said “em why is their a trailer outside?”, she told me that we got a new lesson horse. I was like okay?. In the back of my mind i really did hope it was tommy, but i thought i knew it wouldn’t be. Em told em to go look in one of the bigger stalls, thats where the new lesson horse was. I looked in the stall and started crying. I saw the adorable face of tommy! It was the happiest moment of my life. Tommy has already helped my confidence ALOT. I finally want to jump and feel like i getting better as a rider. My trainer tells me that she loves us together. Im so excited to start my journey with tommy.
My first picture with tommy, right after i found out he was all mine<3.
