ah.... the good old days!

A good friend forwarded me this YouTube vid :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWd_r2sOPhs

I in turn shared it with some riding buddies that I thought would relate! But the more I thought about it the more I needed to share it with everyone. Not only for its comedy, but for its sweetness. Can you remember the days when 8 plus hours at the barn was to short? Can you remember braiding tails for fun? Jumping horse jumps and doing flying changes OFF horses? The adventures we had....I raced in the derby, I steeple chased, I went to the Olympics and won the Tevis cup. All from the back of my 14 hand welsh /TB cross pony. These imaginary adventures blended right in with the actual adventures which sometimes found me walking home, brambles in my hair and dirt on my breeches. It was grand!

Somewhere between there and here things change beyond our control and something is lost. I once credited John Lyons for giving me back my joy in horses. He did and then some. But Ive realized something recently and that is that the joy and the fun and the adventure may get redefined, may get side tracked and may get dusty from disuse but its still there. So many of us remember fondly our childhood horse experiences. Its why most woman get back into horses when they "grow up". Every last one of the gals that I meet don't understand why its not the same and why their childhood pony outshines their current mount in brains and brawn. Gals, Its not the horses that have changed( well, outside of the fact that we can afford the ones we drooled over as kids! wink wink)Its us. Try this: laugh when your horse does something unexpected, braid flowers into his mane, stop during your ride and let your horse graze while you take in the scenery. Imagine you have wings on your next canter, hug him and kiss his warm muzzle. Then when no one is looking gallop yourself(sans horse) over a few cross rails, throw in a buck after a high one and laugh till your sides hurt. Our dreams don't have to die when we attain them and they don't have to become more grand. We where never happier than when our pony's where scraggly,wild and unruly. I will cherish those days and endeavour to create more just like them!