Addictions come in a lot of varieties………

The conversation went something like this…..

Bad Eventer: OMG, my horse is sick, OMG I will die if I lose him……. OMG I better call the insurance company!    (…..don’t worry, he’s fine now.)

Friend: He’s insured??

Bad Eventer: Yes, YES he sure is…. I mortgaged my house to buy this horse!

Friend: You did WHAT????!!!!!

Bad Eventer: Hey, don’t judge……it could have been heroin!!

We all have our addictions.

Mine is horses.

I think my father is still waiting for me to “get over it.”

He always hated horses.

He had 2 childhood friends killed by horses (can you imagine?) and he had a fairly ingrained terror of them.

When his daughter turned out to be HORSE CRAZY………..

it didn’t exactly sit well with him.

As a matter of fact, the only reason I was introduced to eventing was through an amazing set of events.

I was 6 years old.

I knew I couldn’t live without a horse.

It was more important than breathing.

I decided that I was going to sing songs about horses, write stories about horses, draw pictures of horses………………until Daddy relented and got me a horse.

Well……

It didn’t work.

But it DID drive him crazy.

He was complaining bitterly to one of the men he worked with…….whose wife just happened to be a riding instructor.

His friend commented that he should get his horse crazy kid some riding lessons with his wife (as fate would have it…..his wife was an eventer.)

My father’s response: “That is the best idea EVER!! Put her on the BIGGEST horse you have, scare the absolute crap out of her, and I won’t have to listen to this horse non-sense ever again.” Yes, he really did say exactly that…………

They did put me on the biggest horse……

And Bad Eventer was born.