Get approached to blog about your experience going to the 2009 USEF Festival of Champions, not because you’re all that good a rider, but because you can write well, spell correctly and turn in consistent work.

Start writing. Be excited about how easy the ideas come at first. New boots! How to bathe a big gross gray mare! Go to the show and have your horse colic for the first and only time in her life.

Spend all night at her side, and when she’s out of the woods and you go back to your hotel room to catch a bit of sleep, realize that you have to share the story with others, because you’re a blogger, and you have to Tell The Story. It won’t be the first time where you feel like you owe a piece of your life to your readership. But don’t quit.

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A friend of mine lost her horse recently. He was older, and he died in the way we all dream for those we love—out in the field with his friends on a beautiful day, healthy and sound and full of life. And then gone, in an instant.

That doesn’t make it much better, of course; just because it’s a far cry from the slow decline and the tough choice doesn’t make it easy, just ever so slightly easier.

This horse had had an excellent competition career, but you’d probably never heard of him, or at least not heard much about him. But that wasn’t the thing that made him extraordinary. He’d brought countless young people up the levels. He gave his riders the big horse feeling for the first time. He taught them. He humbled them, often rather a lot. He made them.

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It’s a weird year for me. I’m teaching a ton of clinics, which I love, but it means I’m away from home a lot of weekends. And with only Puck to ride at the moment, who will be showing first level next month (woo) but not with any illusions of grandeur, my focus is on my students and on their competitive and personal goals.

The last time my coach, Michael Barisone, came down for a clinic was last fall, when I rode five horses and was, therefore, half the clinic. For this weekend’s visit, I rode one.

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I tell my students it takes a year to get to know a new horse. Some behave differently in response to the weather, so taking all four seasons to get to know them is important, plus it just takes a year to accumulate enough experiences on and off the property to learn who they are and how they think. But I’m learning a bit about Puck already.

There are pros and cons to the green 6-year-old. There are things about him that are very mature, including his body, which is nice; I don’t have to worry as much about overtaxing him with introducing collection as a concept, something I always fret about with the terribly athletic 4- and 5-year-olds.

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I can sit and watch any horse sport done well. I love horses (news flash!), but more than that, I love dressage. And because I’m a huge nerd, I love seeing how dressage plays a role in all the other sports, that the basic tenants of training that I preach to my students apply to other disciplines.

Recently I had the great pleasure of a pairs driving lesson. A student of ours has been involved in pairs driving at the top level for years, and is now coming to dressage, but has a fantastic pair of cremello Morgan mares in training for whom we did some complementary under-saddle training, including the world’s cutest Pas de Deux last year. I hopped up in the cart to take them for a spin, starting out just puttering around in the open, and then tackling cones (at which I was marginally awful), and even a few basic marathon obstacles (which went much better).

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A while back I had a client enter a show at a big level, her debut at that level, and her first show after a long competitive gap. Her horse is an amazing creature, a phenomenal athlete with an equally incredible mind, who’s also had a long history of health issues, including trying very hard to die on her twice, fortunately to no avail. She’s done the lion’s share of the training herself, and he’d spent a month with me to finish up one last piece of the test. Was she ready to do this level? Mostly. Was it going to be incredible? Certainly not.

But I talked her into entering anyway, and here’s why. First, on her best day, she was close enough. Second, the show was close, and we—my students and I—were going already. This client doesn’t live nearby, so it was a great opportunity for me to be there with her to talk her through it. And last but not least, horses are horses, and she’s been thisclose to this level for two years, marred by an annoying injury in the middle.

Screw it, I told her. Life is short. Carpe diem. Get in the ring.

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After a whirlwind last week in Florida, an exciting trip home involving—you guessed it!—two flat tires, and 2 1/2 days to move into my new house in nearby Warrenton, my Floridian team and I are safely back in Virginia, reunited with the home team, and back up and running. I’ve got a few relatively quiet weeks at home until we start the usual spring chaos of constant horse shows and clinics; I’m home one weekend between the end of April and the 4th of July.

But whereas last year I had a full string of horses to show, and even more at home, plugging away at their work, this year I have… Danny, who is maybe going to do a Grand Prix at the end of the year, or maybe not.

And that’s it. Hurricane is spending the summer at Camp Barisone. And other than my wonderful 25-year-old Billy, who I visited in his field today as he enjoys his well-earned retirement, that’s all I’ve got.

It’s weird, having the fewest horses I’ve ever owned since I was a teenager.

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Third Level, Test 3. Ring 2 at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival.

To confirm that the horse demonstrates correct basics, and having begun to develop an uphill balance at Second Level, now demonstrates increased engagement, especially in—

JOHNNY ROAD: HI! Hi hi hi! Omg you guys, we’re at a horse show!! It’s been a few years since I went to a horse show because there was a period of time in which I thought grabbing the bit and running with my head in the air was an appropriate response to being asked for a flying change, and also there was a while where I thought going sideways was pretty stupid. But now I’m a big boy and I’m here and I’m braided and it is SO EXCITING and oh, hey Mom! That was the bell oh boy oh boy oh boy—

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