SFTS Blog Hop: Why Do You Do What You Do?

Jenn over at Stories From the Saddle has hosted a new blog hop (these are so addictive!  You guys are making me want to do one!).  She said:  I want to know why you have chosen the particular discipline you have. Do you ride dressage because you watched your friends and it seemed like fun? Do you ride XC because you love galloping through open fields and jumping over rustic jumps? Do you dabble back and forth across many different disciplines? Would you ever change disciplines? 

I have never actually shown in anything so I'm probably not qualified to answer this, but I love these blog hops so I'm going to anyway.  :D My number one love will always be trail riding.  That's what I grew up doing and I love exploring new places and spending hours on horseback in nature just relaxing and forgetting about the stress of the real world.

As for disciplines I have tried and would like to try...

I don't remember exactly when I discovered dressage, but when I did I begged my mom for a subscription to Dressage magazine.  I read everything I could find on the subject.  When I was a teenager I was approached by the owner of a dressage stable asking if I wanted to feed horses for her.  I jumped at the chance!!!  I had no idea there was even a stable in my town and I was ecstatic for the chance to learn more.  I'd always kept my horses at home so I knew nothing about boarding stables, horse showing or anything like that.  I saw (in person for the first time... obviously I'd seen all this on T.V.) my first warmbloods, first English saddles, first dressage, etc.  It was the experience of a lifetime and I thank my lucky stars I was in the right place at the right time.  I'm still friends with everyone there, I'm going to a dressage clinic there this weekend (as an auditor) and I will take lessons again from there.  I took a year of dressage lessons in exchange for work as a teenager and it was amazing.  The weird thing is that I love learning dressage, but I never really had the desire to compete.  It all seems like so much stress and money.  I have stage fright so I'm terrified of being alone in the ring and I'm terrified of failing publicly.  However I like to try new things so I do plan to show Chrome in a dressage show at least once!  Just to see what it's like and to say we did it.  :D

I actually really love an all around horse that can do anything and as you've probably figured out I love trying new things.  I would be thrilled if I had the chance to try every equestrian sport out there just once.  :D  The ones that really interest me, other than dressage, are Competitive Trail Riding, Driving, Foxhunting and Working Equitation.  I also love mounted shooting and archery as well as the SCA events like jousting.  I want to try them all!  I don't really have the guts for jumping or for galloping a racehorse around a track but everything else is fair game.  :D  Thanks for the blog jop Jenn!  It was fun!