If that was a shoulder shrug, may I suggest you give this some serious thought? I tend to be a bit haphazard about goal setting. (That means I mostly don’t....) I’m a former USEF/Zone 2 competitor. At this point in life, I enjoy “playing” with/having fun with my horses. Have you considered expanding into a previously unexplored
equestrian endeavor?

E.g., I’ve done a couple of mounted orienteering events the past few years. Haven’t placed very high. My husband guffawed when he first heard me express interest. He was a boy scout; he knows about using a compass. I knew about the needle and north. Well...regardless of my lack of compass skills, I thoroughly enjoyed my first CMO (Competitive Mounted Orienteering) effort. I arranged to ride with friends and we had a great day out on the trails and shared some good belly laughs at our interpretation of some of the clues! Give it a shot! See our website for some dates or go to NACMO for further information.

Or how about working with cows? The first time I tried it with my former grand prix jumper he was totally baffled; but it didn’t take long. Once he figured out that I wasn’t going to ask him to leap the milling mass of mooers, we were on our way. A less likely pair to be seen working with little cow critters would be hard to imagine, but we had a ball!

I have decided that 2013 is the year I am going to learn to “rope.” I will say right up front that I will deem this endeavor a success if I can learn to rope a plastic “steer head” (stuck into a hay bale) not from a horse, but rather with both of my feet on the ground. Okay, so that may not technically qualify as an equestrian effort per se. But it’d be a start...

Chat with friends, share your “I’ve always wanted to...” list. If you can inveigle friends to join in your idea/s of fun and then do a turn about is fair play date we can all expand our horizons. I encourage you all to “go play” at something new and share it with the NJ Horse Council newsletter. Take pictures and send them in with a quick who, when, where, why.

We look forward to sharing your new adventures!

Shelly Liggett

Pres., NJHC