the rig

This past winter wasn't super harsh in my region, but our non-winterized sand arena was still frozen solid for about three months. Furthermore, all the fields and trails were slippery, wretched mud. This amounted to no riding at all, except for going around and around the barn on a little gravel path. #boring

this sums up our winter activities...

We survived, however, mostly thanks to the amazing blogging community. Seriously - you guys kept me motivated and inspired even when I couldn't actually do anything fun with my horse. 

In fact - you got me thinking about my priorities. Why do I ride? Why do I ride Isabel? What are we doing with ourselves tinkering around in the arena? At this point, I had never taken a lesson with Isabel - she was still just my ride between lessons at the fancy pants hunter barn. 

pretty much the opposite of fancy pants lessons (but ooh so fun!)

It's unlikely that I'll ever have a similar lease situation with a horse like this for the price tag again. So I decided capitalize on her - really see how far we can go. 

This decision - combined with a *very* modest inheritance ten years delayed - led me to start thinking about getting into a regular training program. Lessons WITH Isabel. But not just any lessons - I wanted to EVENT.  

Figuring out the trainer and barn was actually the easy part, thanks to recommendations, and I spent a month or two riding their school horses before I figured out how to get Isabel there. 

hi Jasper!

The answer was clearly a truck and trailer. I was determined to use JUST the inheritance money for this, and it turned out to be way harder than I anticipated. Who woulda thunk that a used V8 4wd chevy would be such a hot commodity? (...probably anybody who knows anything about trucks - ie, not me). 

I looked at lots and lots of trucks. There really wasn't anything in my price range that didn't have some major issues, and the trucks just above my price range sold in days flat. All I wanted to do was hand over my small little stack-o-cash and drive away in a truck. Why was this so difficult?

somebody plz to transform this into trucky truck!!

But all hope was not lost. A dealer I had previously contacted (about a truck that was sold by the time I called... whomp whomp) took note of what I wanted, and called me when he found a match. 

well hello there.

The truck had just under 200k miles on it and an oil leak. But the price was right and my family's mechanic gave it his blessing (more or less). Yay trucky truck!!! 

I drove it around for two weeks to get really comfortable with it before parking it at it's new home - the barn. As a city girl who has only ever driven small sedans, I wanted to make sure I could handle the truck first before even attempting to tow anything.

it parallel parks!!

Next came the trailer. I had planned to buy used, but this again turned out to be more difficult than expected. 

I asked my new trainer to keep an eye out for me, and she told me that one of the boarders actually has a trailer business. After some back and forth with them, I decided to go for it. It meant financing instead of paying outright... but it's a manageable monthly payment (and I can rationalize anything). And now I have this:

this will do nicely

It took over two months to make this dream a reality. But I finally have the shiny objects with which I will tow my pony around town!! That is, if I can get said pony INSIDE the trailer...