What are you thankful for this year? That’s the question we asked EN readers for the 2018 Thanksgiving Challenge from World Equestrian Brands, and your responses were numerous and heartfelt. Over the holiday weekend, we are honored to share your special stories. You can view an archive of them here.
Photo courtesy of Andi Burros.
My first immediate thought when reading the prompt for this contest was my horse of course. I am completely obsessed with my horse and Eventing Nation. Every night while on the couch with my husband watching television I swear he says to me, “What are you looking at?” I am trying to catch up on all the eventing news, so I say “Eventing Nation, duh!”
But the truth is I am really thankful for what I call, the best horse show husband ever. Without my husband, I definitely would not be where I am right now.
When we first met I had not ridden in years and we lived in an area where horses we not a possibility. In other words, he was not aware how horse crazy I was. I ended up going overseas with my job for two years. It was a war zone, so I went alone, at the time we were not married but when I came home for my first leave we got married. It was definitely a rough two years but I learned a lot about life, like don’t short your dreams.
When I returned I was stationed in a much more horse friendly area, thank goodness. I started riding my Mom’s old horse, retired to dressage, so boring, I only dreamed of jumping. My husband and I never really discussed buying a horse but a friend found one on her Facebook that was for sale, an OTTB. I took off from work during the week and drove to see him, almost five hours. I hadn’t ridden much just the dressage horse and had not jumped at all in years! But I sat on Magic for five minutes and was sold. We never jumped and barely cantered but I loved him. To this day I cannot describe why but I knew he was the one.
The test ride. Photo courtesy of Andi Burros.
I got off and called my husband immediately. I remember him asking, “Do you like him?.” Of course I love him — he said “then buy him.” Two weeks later we owned Magic, my first very own horse. Boy it has been a roller coaster too. I knew I wanted to event because that is what I wanted to do since I was five but I never had the opportunity or money when I was younger. I received a ton of advice, probably way too much, went to see tons of trainers and coaches until I finally settled in with Ashley Johnson in Ocala, Florida. (Ashley truly deserves her own recognition — AWESOME).
Only problem she was an hour and a half away — we still didn’t have a horse trailer, and barely had a truck. So my husband, being super awesome, bought us a brand new horse trailer. Because the truck we had wasn’t making the trips to Ocala, he bought us a brand new truck. We are two average working adults, we make decent money but I must say that every penny I earn goes directly to horses and dogs. It definitely hasn’t been easy, my husband often yells about the amount of boxes coming to the house, jokes that the UPS man knows my name and the names of the dogs and says if I order one more pair of breeches he will take my credit card, but he won’t (I think).
So my greatest horse show husband set me up with an awesome horse and set us on our way but that is not the best part. My husband goes to every lesson and every show with me. As much as he hates it, he even pays attention to the dreadful dressage lessons. He builds me cross country jumps and moves them around the field. He spent an afternoon videotaping me and yelling at me about my body position, who could ask for more than that! When I travel I never have to scoop poop, because he has already done it. He follows us around during cross country schooling with waters and Gatorades, jump starts peoples trucks, holds horses, picks up dropped poles and even saddles horses. I have to admit, if he for some reason, is not there, EVERYONE, not just me, is disappointed.
My husband has been the one to tell me I am good enough and I can do it when I am in the kitchen in tears. Now to beat all he is in the process of moving us 45 minutes closer to Ashley and Ocala and providing us with a farm so we can all be in one place. He says now you can ride at our house you don’t have to drive to the barn every day, and you will save time and you can use that time to ride. Every time we are on a trip home I think about how thankful I am for my husband who has made all my childhood dreams possible.
Currently we are competing at Beginner Novice level preparing for our move to Novice. According to my husband we will go Prelim! He seems to be able to make everything happen. I may ride but without him none of this would be happening, thank you best horse show husband ever!
