Bloghop; 5 Questions

Thanks to one of my most favorite blogettes, Alyssa, at Four Mares, No Money posted a blogshop that  I am going to just hop right in on since no riding is happening in my neck of the woods until at least tomorrow.

Five questions AND GO...

1.  Most influential person in my riding career. This is kind of funny because I literally just posted about this HERE. My most influential person would have to be Cheryl Holekamp. She owns Windfall, Darren Chiacchia's Olympic eventing mount and taught me more about dressage in 6 months than anyone has in my entire life. I would read the post ;)  That being said, I've had some pretty amazing instructors over the years, including Connie Patrick who introduced me to classical dressage, Janice Holmes who was my gutsy eventing coach & OTTB whisperer, and of course, my current Supertrainer at EME, also an OTTB whisperer.

2.  Tack you would love to splurge. I am sure my followers are all aware my current obsession is a Voltaire saddle. One day.

I currently ride in a size 16 Crosby because  can't afford a new saddle and it fits B still. Its about 2 1/2 inches too small (legit a big deal in saddle terms) and I barely squeeze into it. 

If it *barely* fits I sits

I've looked at several saddles in hopes of being able to purchase, but none have fit me quite like the voltaire's. ONE DAY IT WILL BE MINE.  Here's to hoping this year at Rolex....

Hello Handsome

3. Riding playlists? Those exist? I just put my giant playlist on shuffle... I did just buy the entire Justin Beiber album thought. Not sure what that says about me.

Top 10 songs on most recently played would be:
Get Ugly (Jason Derulo)
Boom (Major Lazer)
WTF (Missy Elliot
Sorry (Justin Bieber)
Booty (Jennifer Lopez) 
Beast (Rob Bailey)
Watch me Whip (Silento)
Often (The Weeknd)
Don't (Ed Sheeran)
This Corner (Denaun)

WOW....what a collection. I am a 15 year old boy.

4. Most important aspect of your barn is a tough one. Like, obviously I love that they feed him an he's happy. But the selfish me is always so excited to have an indoor to ride in finally. 

Indoor, we loves its

I've gone YEARS without one (save for my brief 5 year stint in MO at college) here in OH and it has sucked royally. Some of you feel my pain. So I would have to say a well maintained, indoor arena is most important to me, save the actual important things like keeping my horse alive and well.

5. 3 riding goals for the winter is much easier with aforementioned barn perk. My goals are hard to pinpoint considering a lot of them flow into my yearly goals and I generally don't break them up by season. 

Whee winter outside riding!

However with work and grad school I would say #1 is to maintain riding 3-4 times a week minimum. I've actually been really good on this so far. 2. Lateral movements. As in, stop being a spaz when asked. 3. Gridwork. See goal #2 description.

I love bloghops!!