What is your favorite part and how safe do you feel?

-Just being there. I don't have to be riding to enjoy a horse. Just being around them is enough for me to 'detox'. I don't feel unsafe at any point when I'm working with my horse. I do have a "This is crazy. Totally crazy." Thought process when I'm doing something strange, but the only time I get really wigged out is going to a certain style of fence on XC. I just love being around horses, period. Grooming, feeding, riding, or just sitting outside around them. It's 'enough'.

What settings do you feel the safest and where do you feel the danger?

-Probably feel safest around my own horse. I know him best, I know how he tends to react, I know his moods and signals. New horses are always 'sketchy'. I'm never really 'afraid', I'm just a bit more aware of what they're doing to get a read on 'what means what' for them. The one thing that I absolutely hate doing is going into a pasture where there are four horses charging around like a bunch of idiots. We have to pull the horses in when they get too rowdy sometimes, if the grass is slick or the footing is bad. Because I can handle horses I tend to get roped into helping the turn out ladies catch horses in these situations. I really hate doing it-because while I know there's only something like a .01% chance that they'll actually run into me, I'm made very aware of exactly how large they are, how fast they're going and how little control we actually have over them, if they choose to ignore us.

Do you like horses for the rush or the serenity?

-Both. I hate people for the most part. They irritate me, I don't communicate well, and I just exist on a different 'level' than most of my acquaintances. Going to the barn means I'm going to a place where I don't have to say anything. No explanations. So I can just go, and have a bad day, and it's alright to be in a pissy mood. I can groom a horse or three, and just take time to quiet down and chill out. At the same time, there are days when I'm doing something that I find challenging-technical work for example, working on shoulders in down the long wall-and when you 'get it' there is just this insane feeling of elation. It's a huge adrenaline rush when you (Or at least, me) finally get something right-from grid work, to nailing lead changes on a course, or getting over some super freaky fence on XC, or flatwork that is excruciatingly exacting. I love all of it.

“There's a lot about discovering who you are and how difficult that is, and it never stops.”
- Libba Bray