Hi everyone! This year I want to get a little more personal on the blog and not only share with you products and brands I love, but share with you the things I experience in my life and hope to connect with my readers on a deeper level. One of the biggest parts of my life is my horse. He has been my heart horse, best friend and teammate for the last 7 years and I honestly can’t even remember what life was like before him. For those of you who don’t know me, here is our story.

My Journey With Winter:

I have been riding since I was a small girl and was involved in Pony Club, experiencing every and any discipline that involved a horse. Once I reached high school I had quickly discovered that I wanted to focus my energy on Dressage, a discipline I had really fell in love with. If you aren’t familiar, watch a dressage video here. Essentially, it is teaching your horse to dance and the best part? You dance together. It’s still incredible when I think about it. Anyways, I knew it was time to find a horse that I could learn to dance with. That’s when I found a dark gray, 4 year old Andalusian/Hanoverian named Winter. A fun fact about him is that he started out as an amish buggy horse.

Bringing Winter home as a 4 year old.

Throughout my four years of high school, I taught him to jump, took him to horse camp, completed a few hunter paces and went to lots of dressage shows. This was my first experience with a young horse so it wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows but we quickly became best friends.

And he always knew how to make me laugh with his silly personality.
And I even chose him to be my date for my prom pictures.
He was always a good sport, even at the horse shows where it was freezing rain.
Anything I did, I wanted him to be apart of with me. He was in my senior pictures and he even came to my graduation party (at the barn). 
When my family moved to Florida, he made the long trip down with us.
Throughout college, it was tough with my family being in Florida and school being in Pennsylvania. He was with me for a short time of those four years and it was really tough to be apart when he was in Florida. Being separated was tough for our riding career together. Making progress and then taking a break in our training was extremely frustrating. I felt like I had to keep starting over. There were times that I considered selling him because I felt like he deserved more but I would always find myself in tears thinking about the thought of a second without him in my life. We had done everything together.
Fast forward to the end of graduation when I moved down to Florida and was finally reunited with my best friend and was ready to take it seriously. I met an incredible trainer and started riding and taking lessons at home twice a week. Every night after work was spent with Winter. 
He even let my boyfriend get on him!

We started going to some horse shows for the first time in a few years, which was long overdue and felt amazing. 
Going up the levels has been difficult and we have faced so many challenges as a team. Every time I want to give up on him, I remember that if I’m giving up on him I am giving up on us.
He has taught me so much. I get frustrated, disappointed, fed up and many times I want to throw in the towel. He’s sensitive and many times very particular about what he wants and what he doesn’t want.
We have grown together and will continue to grow and when I take time to reflect, I can’t believe how far we have come.
Our journey is still in progress and everyday I feel more confident that we will make it to the top. Every team goes through obstacles and the ones that make it out on top are the ones that don’t give up.
I look forward to sharing more of our journey with you and I hope that if you are ever doubting your relationship with your horse, you choose to keep going.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KeiPPHK7P8&t=6s

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