LEASE HORSE TRIALS

 Today, I didn’t ride Brooks—instead, I rode his old best friend! There’s a bit of a story behind that.

When Brooks first arrived at our barn, he wasn’t alone—he came with his best friend, Kota. Last year, Brooks was progressing better in his training, so he was the only one offered for lease. This year, things are a bit different: Kota has improved so much that he’ll be available for lease next year (2026). As you know, my lease on Brooks ends in December, but a couple of months beforehand, we start trying out the potential lease horses for the following year. That way, once our current lease ends, we can smoothly transition to the new one. Today was my first trail ride, and I was matched with Kota.

That explains most of it, except for why I call him Brooks “old bestie.” After I started leasing Brooks, and his training continued to improve, the barn staff decided to move Kota. Our stable has two barns—one for ponies and one for horses. Since Brooks is a pony and Kota is considered a horse, Kota was moved to the other barn, and they haven’t seen each other in a while. That’s why I call him Brooks “old bestie.”

Kota reminds me a lot of what Brooks started out like last year, except Kota doesn't like contact, whereas Brooks loves it. Kota is an Arabian, so it felt like I was riding a stick. He was so narrow, it felt like every time he stopped, I'd fly right over his shoulder. Luckily, I stayed on (and didn't go flying), we had a pretty good ride! He has really nice movements and he was fun to ride, he kept stopping and not wanting to move forward and would start to back up when I asked him to start moving again, its not normal for him to do that but we think it might be because of Odin his new pasture-mate, we were riding with him and he would be stopped in the middle of the ring so we think that might be what caused it. So my next ride on him, I'm going to be riding without Odin.

We did a little bit of jumping at the 18’’ height, and he was great! On the flat, we walked, trotted, and cantered, but when we jumped, we only trotted the jumps. I’m not sure who I'm going to lease next year, but I definitely liked Kota more than I originally thought I would. I still have a list or horses to try so well see as it goes. I’m definitely interested in leasing Cyrus again and maybe start jumping bigger with him, but we'll have to see where the lease trails take me!