To My Dear Husband: 

I have a confession to make, a little lie I’d like to set straight. It’s been weighing on my mind for a while now, and it’s time to get it off my chest.

Remember last summer when I got my custom saddle? Remember how excited I was to receive it? I took a picture of the box and sent it to you at work.

Competing at HITS Thermal has been a dream of mine since I learned of its existence. And while I’m not quite ready for the A circuit, the nonrated classes seemed like a good place to hopefully have fun, gain experience, and build my confidence.

I had never competed at such a big show before, so of course I spent months planning, strategizing, and obsessing to ensure that everything went off PERFECTLY.

Here’s what actually happened.

The Plan

Nail it at the last schooling show before Thermal

The Reality

Maybe if I'd rolled off instead of launched off, things would have ended differently. Perhaps if my fall had been distributed over multiple points of impact instead of all my weight onto one bone, it wouldn’t have broken.

If I’d kept my lower leg solidly in place over the fence I’d most likely have been in a better position to stay on. And if I had added the stride instead of pushing my horse Kingston off the ground from a long spot, he wouldn’t have felt the need to do his signature duck-prop-buck move in protest of my amateur-ness.

Introducing the Chronicle's newest amateur rider blogger, Lindsey Long!

I spent four months of my life tirelessly scouring dreamhorse.com and reading every ad for every sale horse in the 48 contiguous states. Each evening after dinner I’d pour a glass of wine, pull out my iPad, and start looking within a 100-mile radius of my southern California zip code.