01/01/2026
10 New Year’s resolutions for horse riders:
1. Try not to fall off. Emphasis on try. But if you do, make sure you get it on film.
2. Set high expectations. Mainly with the vet. If you expect to have to call them every other day, you will be pleasantly surprised when it’s only once a week.
3. Accept the fact that your horse is boss. You can pretend, they can pretend, but let’s be honest - who is the one making and delivering the food twice a day and panicking that their horse is too hot/cold/not emotionally supported.
4. Improve your fitness. By “fitness,” I of course mean your ability to sprint across the field in wellies while yelling your horse’s name when they’ve decided to jump headlong into a hedge.
5. Be more organized with tack. This means creating carefully labeled storage areas and then continuing to dump everything in a chaotic pile on the nearest shelf/available surface anyway.
6. Save more money. Step one: write a budget. Step two: immediately blow it on a new rug, three matchy saddle pads, and a training aid/supplement you fully believe will solve every single one of your riding problems without having to accept that the main issue is…well you. Unfortunately.
7. Develop better communication with your horse. Mostly by explaining your life problems while mucking out and hoping they appreciate the emotional vulnerability rather than view it as a weakness to exploit. On second thoughts…
8. Work on your riding confidence. This involves bravely agreeing to increasing the jump height, then immediately remembering every bad life decision you’ve ever made as your horse adds “dramatic speed variation” for fun and you forget what a stride is, how to see one, or the fact that the idea of a stride even existed in the first place.
9. Prioritize consistency in training. Except on windy days. Or cold days. Or warm days. Or days when your horse looks twitchy. So… at least twice in May. Or maybe June.
10. Practice gratitude. Because you will have vet bills, mud disasters, and existential crises. But you still wouldn’t trade your furry half tonne hamster for all the tea in china. But chocolate…well.
That might be a tough choice.