I enjoy my horse. Long time readers will know it took me some time to come to that conclusion. However, the possibility of getting to the AECs in 2015 is about nil.

This is coming up again because a girl I know is looking to find a new home for her horse before she leaves for college next fall. I knew this horse with his previous owner and he is super solid. Jumps everything. So, in a nutshell, he'd be great for me to achieve my competitive goals. Chances are we would qualify for the AECs quite easily. And she wanted to lease him out, perfect as it would mean I wouldn't have to buy him.

Cue the AEC dreams. We could go, we probably wouldn't be last, it would be fabulous. Then I remembered: with grad school I really don't have the money to be competing at all. BN adds on a whole lot of added fees that Pre-Comp doesn't have, so it would be even more. And the AECs aren't cheap all by themselves. It also means all the expenses of an added horse at home as well. I'm really happy with just Naners and Ollie.

And, I like the horse I have. Are competitive goals more important to me than my enjoyment of spending time with her? Sometimes, yes, especially when the means to achieve those goals is falling in my lap. But, even things that fall in your lap can have hidden costs. How much would it suck if I spent the money to qualify, then they decided they didn't want me shipping him that far? I was starting to get unhappy feelings about the whole thing, then remembered similar stuff happens any time I try to supplant Naners in my life. My brain may want other stuff, but my guts let me know I'm straying by giving me stomach problems. So, I'm just going to stick with my girl. However, I do think we're ready to work on getting better again.