Kylie

So I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, and I was a horse girl through and through.

Loved riding horses.

Started when I was a little girl taking lessons at the barn.

I'd worked out a deal with the barn where I could feed and muck stalls on the weekends to help pay for my lessons.

My dad was a school teacher.

My mom was a nurse.

So we didn't have tons of extra income to support this very expensive habit, but they were able to scrape it together to get me this discount right off the track thoroughbred.

And I was really excited.

My friends had these fancy imported warm bloods, but I was happy with my guy.

Big time.

And this one hadn't been trained very well.

All he knew how to do was go really fast.

So in the winters, it's really snowy in Iowa.

So we're not able to ride outside.

So we get switched to the indoor arena.

And one of the things our trainers do during our lessons is take our saddles away from us sometimes just to help work on building balance.

stability, balance, create good core engagement.

In the winters, we would just kind of get in that routine of not riding with saddles.

So one winter day, I go to the barn.

It wasn't for a lesson.