I have been a competitive horse back-rider since the age of twelve. However, I was born in Illinois and my entire family rode horses; I grew up around horses. When I started riding competitively I had still not mastered the art of equestrian and was considered a beginner. Every day I would ride for at least two hours and spent a total of about three hours in the barn, cleaning and feeding the horses. When summer would come around, every year I would attend a competitive equestrian camp where we rode for eight hours out of every single day of the week. We learned about barn maintenance, horse anatomy and health and about the different forms of riding.
Initially I started out as a hunter-jumper rider, which means that I competed in jumping. After numerous accidents and an increasing fear of getting hurt once again, I abandoned jumping to take on Dressage, which turned out to be the best decision I had made in terms of equestrian. Dressage is like gymnastics with the horse, it is a series of movements that demonstrate the riders control over the horse and more importantly the connection the rider has with their horse.
When I started high school my dad bought me a new horse, only this horse was more of a challenge than any others I had ever ridden. He was a baby and my goal was to train him to do dressage, jumping, trails and ground-work. I took clinics with equestrians that had ridden in previous Olympics and clinics with those who were still trying to ride in the Olympics. However, every day I worked with the same trainer, who had also become a good friend of mine due to the excessive time we spent together at the barn. As my horse grew older, he grew more wild and dangerous which forced me to sell him because he had become unmanageable. All throughout high school, I dedicated myself to my horses and would ride in horse shows almost every weekend. Eventually I had acquired enough skill that my instructors had hired me as a trainer at my barn. When my equestrian career had reached its peak, I was riding up to six horses everyday and training people when I was not on a horses back. Horses consumed my life and sadly today I do not ride at all.
However, it is something that I would like to get back into because it had been such a monumental part of my life for so many years.
