One Surprising (& delicious) Benefit to Blogging About Horses

Before I started blogging about horses, I didn’t consider myself the blogging type. I tend to be a fairly private person and the thought of sharing and possibly oversharing with strangers online and posting pictures of myself was a bit uncomfortable.

The longer I blog, the more grateful I am to have given it a shot. In fact, in recent days I’ve been pondering just how cool blogging about horses is for this simple fact:

Blogging opens the door to wonderful relationships.

In fact, blogging about your passion is a fast pass to friendship with fellow bloggers and readers who share that same passion.

These relationships are based on affinity and not bound by the limits of geography. Let me demonstrate.

I have had three recent interactions with lovely women I probably would never have happened upon were it not for Saddle Seeks Horse. You might like to befriend/blogfriend them too.

First, about a week ago I was thrilled to meet Christy Rettger of Dressage Fundamentals in person after having been friends online and swapping blogging ideas (and riding) ideas for months!  She even let me hop on her dressage horse Remy (an off-track Thoroughbred now at Third Level) and feel what a proper shoulder-in, haunches-in, stretchy trot, and turn on the haunches are like.

Thus far in my riding life I have only dabbled in dressage. I knew of the aforementioned, elusive (to me) movements, but had never really ridden them (properly) that I’m aware of. The difference between knowing of the thing and then trying it in real life is like the difference between knowing gelato exists, and then actually getting to try gelato in Italy (or artisan ice cream in Paris–more on that later). Trying the haunches in on a highly schooled horse is so much better than reading about it!

Riding Remy was like savoring stracciatella in Rome.

It was such an honor to “test drive” a horse of Remy’s caliber. If I hadn’t met Christy through blogging (also discovering Amy is a mutual friend), I wouldn’t have been able to also have had the chance to see how it is possible to go from canter to walk by my basically thinking “walk” and stopping my hips from moving. Now I know what Knight is capable of!

When Christy and I met in person at the barn outside of Chicago where she keeps her horses, I felt I had known her for a long time. Our mutual passion made it not weird for her to essentially let a stranger mount and ride around the ring on her fancy horse.

Next, as if that weren’t cool enough, that same day I met Christy and Remy (and caught up with my friend Amy who wrote this funny guest post about returning to the show ring) I got to meet Sarah from the blog Collecting Thoroughbreds. Sarah and Christy are real-life friends in addition to having a trainee/trainer relationship. I have admired Sarah’s writing from the early days of my foray into the blogosphere. She recently posted a beautiful (and funny) piece titled Why I Ride. This quote from her post resonated with me.

“This process [riding] also generates another important byproduct: grit. As you learn to manage fear, and improve your performance, you also become a grittier person. And you learn that fear can be vanquished.” –Sarah

When I read Sarah’s post I almost jumped out of my seat and cried, “Amen!” And I thought about my own zeal for riding. I “get” Sarah and understand how she can’t not ride, despite the risks. It made me think about why I ride and how I need to write my own version of this post.

Spoiler alert: my own version of Why I Ride will contain a passage about how when you are in the saddle, you can connect to the younger part of yourself. On horseback I can be 23 again and I don’t have to look at my own frown lines.

Riding is a beautiful thing indeed!

Sarah and I–in the span of approximately 90 seconds–went from not knowing each other to commiserating over finding a saddle that fits both our horses and ourselves. I was delighted to hear she occasionally has to travel to Southern California for work and I invited her to come out and ride Knight. And so another real life blogging friendship was born.

Finally, there is one more blogging friend I have yet to meet, but I know the day will come. I have Martine from Tails From Provence to thank for giving me a tip on the best ice cream in Paris. My husband and I are on vacation in Cyprus right now and we had about a six-hour layover at Charles De Gaulle airport. I tweeted Martine to ask for the name of her friend’s ice cream shop in Montmartre–she had suggested we stop by last summer, but we never had the chance.

Martine tweeted me right back and the rest is history and calories I need to burn.

Martine is not only a dedicated ice cream recommender. Some of you might recall a horrible customer service experience (actually a lack of any service) I had with a saddle company a couple of years ago. Martine was kind enough to go into French equestrian forums on my behalf to see if similar circumstances were happening in her part of the world. She even translated pertinent comments into English for me.

What would motivate a person with a full life (two horses, a hubby, grown daughters, and three dogs) to research on behalf of a stranger on the other side of the world? Kindness, yes, but also I believe the solidarity that forms between lovers of horses.

(By the way, if you want to laugh and feel like you’re on a virtual trip to the south of France, you must check out Martine’s blog. Don’t be jealous of her header image–riding through a field of lavender.)

Thank you blogging and thank you Christy, Sarah, and Martine for being awesome blogging friends.

If you have ever considered giving blogging a go, perhaps these stories of how I have been able to meet lovely fellow horsewomen I might have never crossed paths with will give you the motivation. Thank you for reading. 🙂

Your Turn: Have you thought about starting your own blog (if you haven’t already)? If you already blog, what is a surprisingly delicious benefit you have received?

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