The Beginning

Welcome to my blog about training my horse! Let me tell you a little about myself and my horse, JJ.
I have always loved horses, but grew up without them. Denied the opportunity to have a horse, ride a horse, or even be around horses, my teenaged self decided it would be less painful to just repress that overwhelming love for the equine species. So I went on with my life, but whenever I saw a horse, I would sigh and secretly pine away. Or not so secretly, for as my thirtieth birthday drew near, my darling husband decided I needed to have a horse.
So off to an equine rescue we went. There I met JJ, a 17.1 hand Thoroughbred gelding. It was not love at first sight-I was overwhelmed by the 30-odd horses running around, and he was less than thrilled to be taken away from his herd buddies.
But, many months and several thousand dollars later (a long story) JJ was mine. When I finally moved him into his new home, a barn less than 10 minutes from my house, he was underweight with no strength or condition to speak of. I wasn't much better off, having spent months learning absolutely nothing worth knowing from the woman that ran the rescue. We were a mess, but I was determined that I would do the right thing by this horse.
The first thing on my to-do list was to find a GOOD trainer. As anyone who has ever had that particularly unappealing task knows, it is easier said than done. Especially when you are coming off a bad relationship-just like dating! You are wary of anyone, and completely untrusting.
But, as these things sometimes do, fate intervened in the form of a soft-spoken Scottish lady. She just happened to be giving a clinic on lungeing at our barn, and I volunteered JJ to be a demo horse, and well, everything just fell into place. She moved her horse to our barn and we started taking lessons, me and JJ, in June 2009.


Alyssa