Well, I don’t follow my own advice. Riding is a sport. That means if you are not physically fit, if you do not practice regularly, if you do not train your muscles and reactions you are fooling yourself and taking a greater risk in an inherently dangerous rugged adventure sport as horseback riding is classified by insurance companies and anyone who knows anything about the nature of the horse and the nature of the human. How’s that for one long sentence.

For many reasons I haven’t ridden regularly for a month, wait…… no longer, since it wasn’t so hot, no wait……since so much wasn’t going on in my personal life, no wait…..since, Wow, I’m not sure since when or for what reason, but I’m not fit, my horses aren’t trained into oblivion, my horses aren’t being worked by anyone else into oblivion, my horses are horses……. and I am an aging human struggling to balance life with love of horses and riding.

I went off, as in fell off, as in bucked off today. I wear an air vest so, yes, I am lucky and not too sore and feel a little creaky, stiff and “will pay later” in my parts. I just had to pop over that little jump. I just was too lazy, too falsely confident, too much in denial about my fitness level, too much in denial about my horse’s training level, too silly to make sure my horse was in work mode not play mode.

Ladiez, I am flippin 66 years old. What am i thinking?????? We need to be realistic in our goals, realistic in our ambitions, realistic in our investment of time, money, efort verses the trade we might be making. Anyway, if you are going to be silly like me and take chances driving that vehicle. Whether that vehicle’s job is an off road navigator, a plunk around town grocery shopper, a finely tuned machine, a walk-only trial mount, a ranch mount, an arena hacker, just remember, it does have a choice and a mind of it’s own. Something might happen, it might get excited having fun, it might get scared, it might be just a horse …….. Be safe.