January 11, 2012

Blogging

Thanks, everyone, for all of the awesome comments and discussion on the last post.  Laura asked about Contender's/Cob movement, and said that the breed is growing on her.  This blog has went through a couple of evolutions in its relatively short lifespan (my longest continuing blog has been regularly written in for over a decade, so this one feels new!), going from Training & Handling II journal, to lesson journal, and finally to what it is now: a blog about bringing up an unusual breed in the eventing world, and showcasing that breed in the process.

Blogging is a selfish thing for me.  With my personal blog, I'm always amazed when I reread what I wrote during my sophomore year of high school and realize how my thought processes have matured and changed over the years.  Riding and horses are the same way.  I have another, hidden, blog called 'Five Mustangs, Ten Freshmen, One Round Pen' that chronicles my Training and Handling I experience (we broke yearling mustangs to halter etc for class my freshman year of college), and I hid it because I want to keep it around, but my ideas on horsemanship have changed so much since then that I don't feel it's a fair representation of me anymore.  Someday, six years from now, I hope to go back and look at my last post and laugh as I remember a recent ride in the outdoor that was perfectly calm and quiet. 

But as much as this thing is a chronicle of our progress, it's also a breed showcase.  Not many Americans have ever been around a Welsh Cob, and I'm all about promoting the breed I fell in love with.  I hope that I can use it as a tool to introduce people to the breed who otherwise would never have gotten the chance, and to prove, much like Stacey and Klein do over at The Jumping Percheron, that unusual breeds CAN do well in eventing.  He doesn't have to be an Olympian, because I'm not going to be an Olympian, but he can be good in it as far as we're going to go!

I'm proud of the work being done by his breeder, by my trainer, and by myself, and I hope to continue to showcase all of us and to promote eventing while I'm at it.

There's my introduction to the new readers - now introduce yourselves!  I need some new reading material.

2 comments:

  1. Well, I have to admit something - the pony I had as a kid was "supposedly" a welsh pony/appaloosa cross. Other than being fairly tough and hardy, she didn't really have anything else going for her. Her build was very rough and she was kinda ugly...but she was my first pony and we trail rode all over the place. She didn't have the movement or style of the cob type horses at all - not sure if the ponies have the same qualities as the cobs??? That'll be something fun for me to research this winter! :-)

    On another note - I think the cob is perfectly suited for the hunter/eventing world. They are so popular in Britain... Also, the cob reminds me alot of the Connemara - and they are popular in eventing as well.

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  2. I feel the same way as you do. I started my blog as a place to keep track of my training but there is definitely an element of haflinger promotion now. It is fun to share your passion for an "underdog".

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