Sorry I haven’t blogged much. It’s been a bit of a strange time in my current life.
Last month everything bad that could possibly happen happened all at once. The world as I know it was literally ripped apart and every day has been a struggle as slowly I’m trying to glue all the pieces back together.

The funny thing is though, out of all the shitty things that happened (best friend died, boyfriend dumped me, death of pets, work related stress….) the one that stung the most was my doctor telling me that I HAVE to quit breaking/starting young horses. My spinal problems (mainly scoliosis and a few bulging discs) are getting worse and the nasty falls are to blame. I’m 26 and already suffer from crippling arthritis, but I get up and ride anyway because it’s what I love. =( pain meds only make functioning tolerable… And lord knows I hate taking them so yeahhh…. I’ve not told my boss yet (I’m going to May 1st when board would normally be due.) I guess I’m going to hand him an envelope full of board money (which i normally worked off through riding) and tell him I just can’t do it anymore :(

Really bummed out over this. But on a positive note, it suppose it means I’ll have more time for my own horse…. And more time for myself which is much needed at the moment.

Funny how I had my whole life planned out last month…..
Now I’m standing on the edge of a cliff that looks down over god knows what. =\ nothing is clear to me anymore. Everything is just one big clusterfuck of “I don’t know where I’m supposed to go from here.”

=(

New ink :) not finished but I’m in love with it so far!

Trying to at least…

Horse owners with diesel trucks will get a giggle out of this

So proud of this pony (yes he is a pony….14.1hh) and our jumpers debut together :) we go waaaaaaaay bigger at home but since this was his first trip out we decided not to push it. Our first round we went clear in 55secs (which was in the top 3 times…. Not that it mattered) and our jump off time was a clear 33secs….. Not too shabby for a little green guy competing against about 30 leggy TBs we finished 8th…. Not in the ribbons but good enough :) I’m proud…. Considering we just kind of yanked him out of the pasture (where he’s not been ridden for 6 months) two weeks before the show and said “you will be a jumper pony!” lol

There was a girl there once. What stands before you is but a shell of peppermint kisses and wild tangled hair for you to run your fingers through. Everything else was taken away piece by piece . They smelt the dying and came in hoards. licked and licked like feral dogs digging for marrow (the best bits of me, all soft and juicy and pink) Porcelain skin and indifferent eyes. Ashes ashes everything dies….well… It does eventually right? So i’ll live in this moment (temporarily) and bask in it. A moment as rare and fleeting as a shooting star.

I stretch across your silken bed sheets like a black rescue cat, skin and bones. Unlucky. I’ve been called that more than once, an apt name. Staring at the ceiling with the expression of a freshly powdered corpse. The living dead have been known to bite, but I rather just lay here while the stars burn down through the sky light overhead. All good things should happen under the stars. Don’t you agree? All good things are wild and free and what lays before you are both. So take what you will. All I have left to offer are confusion and peppermint kisses, other than that I’m comfortably numb on these pillows today, because when the dead speak nobody listens. When they scream someone may turn and look but all step back, afraid of that which they don’t understand, afraid the disease is contagious, and they too will fall into a pit of not giving a fuck. Depression is the new virus of the zombie. Yet the CDC broadcasts no warning. Are you feeling the stress eating you from the inside out. Gnawing on your liver along with the champagne and Valium.

Sleep sweetling and dream

While broken things go unfixed because everyone is so scared to try. One day the world will be a junkyard of broken things. Forgotten toys and affections wasted. The bodies will pile up and burn in the crematorium. A cheap farewell to be turned to ash apparently? Did you know that? And out of curiosity…. where would you scatter mine?

Retail therapy…. Equestrian style.

Sometimes I wish I was a chemical engineer if only to have the power to put apathy in a pill. But I guess that’s already been done with milk made from red poppies, the color of fake blood and stop signs and slutty high heels. Coincidentally the color of the lights shining bright above brothels where women who have stopped caring, pleasure men who care little about the product being sold. Ass and tits, just another commodity. I wish I could swim through fields of indifference. Fields of red poppies, their petals creating waves on which the wind gently surfs. In a valley surrounded by snow tipped mountains, away from every heavy burden, turning circles, arms wide while the sun kisses my hair and skin.

Oh how much easier life would be, if I could just find a surgeon to remove this wretched thing in my chest called a heart, A heart that apparently cares too much and gets hurt too easily. And I could lay there on the table while indifference is delivered direct into my veins. “It will all be over soon enough.” said the good doctor. A wise raven with white feathers (in reference to life). It flies south when the icy bite of winter is nipping at its heels. And perhaps that’s what you should do too lady bird? Escape escape far far away, build a nest of rocks so high that no one or nothing could ever hurt your fragile being again, not people, nor dragons, or harsh realities, because the FDA has yet to approve the pill that makes you stop caring. When they do perhaps girls like me will stop sealing suicide letters with sticky lipstick kisses…. Red the color poppies bloomed.

Photo credit http://dijitil.tumblr.com/

So my brain is not wired properly or something. My trainer is sssssoooooooooooooo scared when he watches me ride jumpers style. I get that he hates jumpers because he almost saw his favorite student killed in a fall…. But shit happens…. That’s the risk you take. Yesterday I had an audience and they were like…. Doesn’t it scare you? I’m like… Actually I’m kind of bored…. Can we add more roll backs and put the jumps up? The horse I’m showing Saturday has nooooo problem going clear. Max height at this show is 3’3” and I’ve been pushing him 3’9” all week and we’ve yet to knock or even brush a single rail. I think the thing that terrifies everyone is the speed. (to me it fees totally controlled) to those watching it must look like an all out gallop. I lost my stirrups at one point in a rollback and continued the course and got through it just fine…. My trainer was like never ever ever let me see you do that again…..i was like….but uhhhh…. If that happens in the show ring thats what im gonna do. They all keep telling me to whoa and do the hunter numbers down the lines (5 strides, 4 strides, 3, strides) even ask me to add a stride to those numbers…but when I put the breaks on his canter goes all choppy where as if I just go for it and cut 1 stride out of each line…. We may really be flying at breakneck speed but it feels like a more solid and clean run. They all say HE’S A PONY WHAT YOU’RE DOING IS IMPOSSIBLE =\ but uh…. Clearly its not because we’re getting it done (and done quite well in my opinion) one trainer yells at me to get in his grill and saw the reins (which he hates and makes him go nutso) the other just tells me to sit back and use my non existent ass to slow him down… Which does little because Seriously…. I have no bottom. My “just point and go” method feels so must better / safer / correct on this horse and when I point and go and let him do his job we find perfect distances EVERYTIME. I know the first round is just about going clear but why risk sacrificing that for the sake of slowing down when it doesn’t really matter? Soooooo this weekend should be interesting. I’m Hoping neither trainer will be ringside because they will be too busy with the walk trot kids. I’ll have the horses previous owner who is a grand Prix rider and one of the most famous barrel racers to ever compete in my cheerleading section. Haha…… We are the long shots I guess and apparently it’s going to be by the grace of god and the skin of our teeth….but I have every faith in this pony. I really should start riding cross country so I could REALLY scare them ;)

I don’t know if you knew that you saved me, Mr. Big Brown Eyes. Just so you know, I could lose myself In that glossy space, caught between your pupils and feathery eyelashes, feeling convinced that there’s a soul in there somewhere, a soul older and wiser than any I’ve ever known. Perhaps you are a God and our footsteps are only falling in your lands while you watch, curiously saddened and amused all at the same time.

Do you silently laugh at me when the sight of a halter and lead sends you off at a gallop knowing the game of chase will always end in giggles, and peppermints, and my nails tickling your neck as you walk defeated to the cross ties?

Can you feel the subtleties of my pulse as it transfers from gloved hands down braided reins to the cold steel resting in your mouth? And in that fluttering heartbeat do you feel all my anxieties, my fears, my sadness, my love? Do you bare all my burdens as well as my weight on your shoulders dear friend? Oh what secrets your velvet ears keep. And yet you remain ever silent, ever patient, ever understanding.

On your back I feel like I can do anything, that we have the wings of a golden hawk and could soar over moon should our hearts desire. The steady beat of your hooves striking the ground sounds out the very rhythm to my soul… a soul that rocks to the motion of a canter. 1-2-3 1-2-3. A beat that drowns out a million voices in my head that would rather see me tethered to the cold hard dirt. The sunrise and the stars belong to us, Brown Eyes. The world is truly ours.

Together we fear nothing, not thunder, nor darkness, nor criticism, nor death, always taking responsibility for each other’s well being…. because when you’re weak I’ll be strong for you, and when you let go I’ll be holding on tightly.

And when I press my face into your mane and allow the tears to slip from my eyes…. brown eyes like yours, and you wrap your swan-like neck around my body, embracing me as if I was an awkward foal, a part of your herd, I feel like everything in the world will be ok. If only just for a moment I am saved.

- Hailey Elizabeth Smith
16.03.2012

Not the best equitation (having some serious spinal issues at the moment) but I’m super proud of this since it’s my first time riding jumper style on Reichen :) just need to work on our roll backs.. Hopefully he’ll be ready for his first horse show next weekend :)

Not the best equitation but I’m recovering from a back injury. Horse show next weekend….. Soooooo excited for my jumper division debut

Such soft sweet eyes

This breaks my heart :( he just stands in the corner all day looking lonely and when I try to ride him he has no enthusiasm…. Like he’s super depressed. When I try to walk him back to the paddock it’s everything I can do to drag him past the round pen where his former buddy is currently being held. I wish I could make him happy again but I don’t know how? :( (short of getting him a new friend….but no one wants their horse with mine because he’s so big) *sigh