The Mandatory Intro Post

I've been thinking about opening up shop on my own blog for a while now, so here goes! You've come across the blog of a soon-to-be 17 year old girl and her 13 year old horse. "Blue Eyed Eventers" comes from the fact that we both have blue eyes, and are, shockingly, both eventers. It also abbreviates nicely to BEE, which I think is catchy. Anywho.

The four legged blue eyed critter is Valerius Magnus, who goes by Val. He's a 15.3 hand bay paint who started life as a western do-everything horse, and I first met him in somebody's front yard. The old man that had taken him from start to 12 years old had sadly passed away, and it was time for "Sunday" to find a new home. He found that home with me. He went from getting close to 4lbs a grain daily and living with an apple tree in his pasture (that no one actually knew was an apple tree until he left!) to getting considerably less grain, and a lot more work! He's flourished in the year I've had him, and he's become a very fancy boy. Although I might be a tad biased.

The two legged blue eyed girl is me, Sam. I've been riding for about 3 years, but the the first year and a half were extremely basic years of little more than stay on the horse, trot the horse, canter the horse! When I passed in to my current instructor's hands with a rather exaggerated reputation from my previous instructor, she was a little bit surprised! Fortunately, I improved from not even being able to trot her first level dressage and novice level event horse to a fairly functional rider, but there's always more to fix and more to learn.

This summer has been an amazing one for me and Val- we've competed at 5 different events at the beginner novice level, and we've had a great time doing it! There have been plenty of bumps along the way, such as a terrible case of "canter center line" for a few dressage tests (pure nerves on my part!), but we've learned a lot. We're qualified for the AEC's, or American Eventing Championships, and it's looking like we're going to be able to go. I am extremely psyched, and even if we do poorly, it'll be a great experience and a great way to end our first year.

So, that's the tip of the iceberg for Val and I, and for the blog itself. I could extend the lovely iceberg metaphor some more, but I think I'll just leave it at that. :)