Late to the Party: 5 Day Challenge - Day 1

Bit late to this, but not much to write about, besides that River continues to eat massive amounts of food, so I need to write about something, and Tracy's questionnaire looked fun!
 

1. Most influential person on your riding

That would be a tie between my first trainer, D., and my current Coach (who I haven't seen since August-ish, got to fix that soon!). D gave me my start, taking me from a rank 10-year-old who "knew" everything and couldn't do a thing, and coaching me up to riding the more reliable babies (at about 12-13), riding other people's horses, and hopping over little cavaletti. Coach took me from a scared and tense early college student who hadn't ridden in two years, was afraid of any jump over a 12" crossrail, and got popped off when my horse kicked out, to a quite "sticky" rider jumping 2'6 confidently, and riding almost-completely-green off-track babies. Though I don't agree with everything either of them did or do, I love them both!

Chompy chompy mouth (ignore my staring at the ground!)

2. Piece of tack you’d love to splurge on

Custom saddle would of course be awesome! In fact I'd like two--one jump saddle and one dressage saddle! But barring that, I'd like to find a bit that River actually likes. I don't know if such a thing exists, and I'm sure a lot of it is just him being anxious and figuring out his mouth and the idea of contact or the lack thereof, but it would be awesome to find one he didn't feel the need to gape his mouth with.

3. Top 5 riding playlist

I hardly listen to music at all, which is weird because I used to listen, play, and practice a ton, like an hour a day (okay, whatever, it's a lot for me!) before I was in high school, and I performed quite a lot for churches and Christmas programs and whatnot in the area. High school killed my music, which I regret, but I haven't found the time to pick it up again. I enjoy music, sometimes I listen to it when I'm studying and often when I'm driving, but not when I'm riding or hiking. I get distracted too easily...sometime I'd like to try it though, see if it could help me relax and not over-think everything! 

Happy horse is happy.

4. Most important aspect of your barn?

The pasture is really pretty good for this area, we have good pastures and they're actually rotated frequently (unlike most places in the area that just throw two dozen horses on a dozen acres and expect to have it be okay...). But I think the thing I like the most is the people. We're a small barn, about ten families and seventeen horses, and everybody kind of looks out for everybody else. Nobody has an entitlement complex and it's just a really nice, down-to-earth group of people that love horses. This is so huge for me because at my previous barn it ended up being so much just about the money--not so much the folks who were boarding there, but the management. Horses suffer when that happens. Here, River may still struggle with his weight when there's not foot-high grass 24/7, and it's a drive over and back every day, but I know he's happy and that everyone will be super accommodating if he's sick or injured, and that's what matters.

5. Three winter riding goals

1. Gentle, regular hill work with River, starting as soon as I finish finals and get onto Christmas break, to get him back into shape.
2. Start River over baby jumps to see how he likes it and how he does
3. Lots of no-stirrup and two-point to strengthen my position and get my legs where they're supposed to be