Betrayal

So after my stunning debut at the schooling show yesterday at Other Barn (haha), the barn manager came up to me. "Good news!" she said. "We finally have a horse that you might be able to lease." Geez. Talk about bad timing, lady.

Since I started riding at Other Barn last year, I put in a request to half lease a horse. This is the first time anything has come up. Of course, I immediately told the barn manager I was already leasing another horse at a different barn. We chatted about Mae for a while and that was it.

But I've been thinking about it ever since and now I'm conflicted. And feeling guilty for feeling conflicted! You see, Other Barn is super close to where I live, a 10-minute drive at most. On nice days I can even ride my bike there. Mae's barn, meanwhile, is at least a 30-35 minute drive away. That's far for me. I'm one of those tree hugger types who takes public transportation to work and tries to walk or bike to the store whenever possible. Since I've been leasing Mae, my car has seen waaay more miles than it has in a long time. Before the lease, I almost didn't care about gas prices because I only had to fill my tank maybe every 4-5 weeks. Now it's more like once a week.

But more than that, Other Barn has way better riding facilities. A huge indoor, nice outdoor, jumps, and awesome trails. (I LOVE trail riding.) So now I find myself pining for a lease at this barn instead of having to drive all the way out to see Mae and ride in so-so rings with limited trail access. And today I went out to ride Mae and I have to tell you -- the drive put me in a really bad mood. Ten minutes in, I was thinking, "I'd be at Other Barn by now!" and it only got worse from there. Besides gas money and guilt over spewing ozone-eating fumes, the drive also eats into my time, which lately I have been scarily protective of.

So obviously, a lease at Other Barn would work better for me. But how can I consider abandoning Mae? She has no one else to ride her this summer. I'm not tied down and can stop the lease at any time, but the thought of her losing the one person who comes out just for her is sad. Almost every boarder I've met at the stable says something to me like, "It's so good to finally see Mae get some attention and exercise." Not to mention my internal dialogue of, "Hey, I even started that blog and named it after Mae. How the heck am I going to explain myself if I ditch her??" LOL.

I know that there is already some interest from riders at Other Barn in leasing this new horse. The lease options go really fast at Other Barn, which is why I feel so sick about this. It took almost a year for this one to become available, and who knows when the next one might come along. I think what I'll do is ask to try out this horse -- I don't even know anything about him, but the barn manager is very careful about matching lease horses to appropriate riders -- and go from there. I won't drop Mae tomorrow or anything, but maybe I could try a lease at Other Barn starting in August or so.

What do you think? Am I horrible for being tempted by this new offer? That's part of leasing that attracted me in the first place, after all...minimal commitment, can stop at any time. But poor Mae. Don't worry, I won't let her go just yet.

So speaking of Mae, I rode her today and it went fairly well. She didn't do any of that weird bit-grabbing like she did last week, so that's a relief.

After we rode in the indoor, I decided to cool her off by taking a walk on the trail. Mae's owner told me that she shouldn't go out on the trail without another horse, but I've come to realize Mae's owner is kind of scared of her. I'm not sure, but I don't think the owner has ever taken Mae on the trail, period. And I feel I'm getting to know her well enough to trust that she won't randomly go batshit once she's out of a ring. So we took a very quick ride through a few fields. She definitely seemed interested and excited to be out in the open. Her ears were pricked and she was bouncing along with quite a long of energy. She spooked once when an animal made some noise in behind us, but other than that was fine. I think I'll try a longer trail ride with her soon (well, as long as we can go...the trails at this stable aren't so hot) and maybe I can even con one of the other boarders into going along with me.

So that's all for now. I'll keep you updated on this lease situation at Other Barn as I get more info. Although I wouldn't be surprised if the horse was already spoken for!