HECK YEAH! - Blog Hop

[Title modified because sometimes my church friends read this, y'all!]

I found this blog hop on Carly's blog originally, which lead me to the creator, I Will Jump Sweet Jumps. I love it when blog hops lead me to new-to-me, fun blogs to read!

In any case, this blog hop is all about reminding yourself that you are a BADASS:

"..horse riding is so hard. Like you know those hard days where you're lying on the floor so depressed and haven't been able to pick up your left canter lead on any horse for days and for some reason your left hand won't stop clamping on the reins and refuses to soften and do what it's told and you feel like you'll never be good again. But you are good and there have definitely been times when you were like omg I am such a gangster at this. And I wanna see those pictures."

And boy do I ever need to remind myself that I wasn't always feeling like a crappy rider, trying to kick my angsty pony around a starter course without him having a personal crisis. Here are some photos from the times when I felt like I was totally killin' it:

This photo, hands down, is my top "badass" photo. This was my first LEGIT Novice XC jump. I thought I was going to have a heart attack and die when my trainer told me to jump it, but I did it, and DAMN WE LOOK GOOD DOING IT. This picture reminds me that my Bad Pony has scope for days, and I can be a lot ballsier than I give myself credit for.

This pro shot from Flora Lea of us chewing up the stadium course and spitting it out is another favorite. Dino was so incredibly on his game over this maxed-out course, and I had an absolute BLAST riding it! You can see both of us are intensely focused and KICKING ASS!

Probably one of the best XC jumps of my lifetime. Everything about this is perfection. I will never not love this photo. The way Dino jumped this BN log, my freakin' awesome equitation, and remembering how absolutely perfect this jump felt all make me feel like a badass.

These two dressage photos are from the beginning of the season on crappy, muddy footing, and my pony looks PHENOMENAL. Look at us fancy-prancing our butts off! That is some BADASS DRESSAGERY.

This one is from the worst show of my life, but we are jumping the ever-loving-snot out of this fence AFTER I crashed, cried a lot, and wanted to go home. BADASS.

I saved the oldest for last: jumping Dino 3'6" for the first time ever after a long, hard year of nursing him back to health. I freakin' love this pony. I don't care that I look like a praying mantis, I jumped my tiny pony 3'6" without a care in the world! BAD. ASS.