I have been riding horses since I was about eight years old, and I had only ridden at one barn. During the years of 2013 and 2014, I was not having a good time at my barn anymore. I had been riding there for almost 10 years at the time, so I didn’t want to say anything; however, things got bad enough where I had to tell someone what I was thinking.
   

My trainer at that barn was nice at times, but most of the time she was not very nice to me. I was having a very difficult time with my horse, and she could tell that I was not doing well, but she didn’t offer to help me in any way. My horse would never let me catch him from the field, and every once in awhile, he would come for food, but not always. There was another horse in his pasture that would pin his ears back and charge at me, and every once in awhile, rear up at me, whenever I went to catch my horse. This horse made me scared to get my horse from his field, and since my trainer wouldn’t help me catch my horse, I didn’t want to go to the barn anymore. I would have good days at the barn, but most of them were bad.
   

Once they got bad enough, I told my parents how I was feeling, and we decided to start looking at other barns in the area. I asked some of my friends about their barns, and how they liked them, and what they liked about them. Finally, my friend Brenna told me that she really liked her barn, and she gave me the information for the barn owner, so my dad and I scheduled a day for us to look at the barn.
   

When we finally went to look at the new barn, I was very excited to see it. I thought that the barn owner, Alyssa, was extremely nice, and I could tell that everyone who worked there worked very hard on keeping the barn clean and running smoothly. The barn was big and white in color. This barn was already much nicer than my other barn, and just by seeing it, I could tell that I was going to like it.
   

I walked in, and the barn owner was right there to greet my dad and me. We arrived at the barn around feeding time, so a person who worked at the barn was filling the water buckets in the stalls, and filling up the feed buckets. When we were almost finished with the barn tour, Alyssa said: “I think you are making a very good decision about wanting to move barns. If one of my children had to walk into a pasture like the one you have to, I would not feel safe about that, and I would do exactly what you’re doing”.
   

I was given some time to think about what I wanted to do, and if I really wanted to move barns. Once I made my final decision about moving barns, my dad and I told my old trainer. She was very sad to hear this news, but she still offered to trailer my horse over to the new barn.
   

On the day that we were moving my horse, April 7, 2014, my old trainer was excited for me to have this new experience, but I could tell that she was upset that I was leaving her barn. “Hi Nina, once you get Murphy out of the trailer, you can bring him through those barn doors, and his stall will be the sixth one on the left. If you want, you can walk him around the barn to get him used to everything before you put him in his stall” Alyssa said. I went to get my horse out of the trailer, and before I put him in his stall, I walked him around the barn to show him everything, since it was all new to him.
   

Once he was in his stall, I filled up his water buckets. When I started filling the buckets, the water made noise, and my horse spooked at the noise, and he wouldn’t go near his water buckets for a little while after that. While I was watching how my horse was behaving in his new stall, someone from the barn walked up to me and introduced herself.  “Hi, I’m Becky. Is this Murphy?” she said. “Hi, yes this is Murphy, and my name is Nina.” I responded. Becky said; “I teach dressage lessons here, so whenever you want to set up some lessons, just let me know”. “Thank you, we will definitely do that” my dad responded. 
    

I started taking lessons from her about a week after I moved to the barn, and I have been taking lessons from her ever since. After about half a year of taking dressage lessons with Becky, she noticed that my horse wasn’t lifting his back like he should be with his new training. “Let me see how his saddle fits him” she said. It turned out that his saddle was laying on his spine, so it was hurting him if he ever lifted his back. If this had happened at my old barn, my old trainer would have never noticed this, and she would have just told me that I was a bad rider, and that it was all my fault.
   

After moving my horse to the new barn, and taking lessons with Becky, I could tell that my horse was much happier, and also healthier than he was at the old barn. Before moving to the new barn, I was jumping, and not doing a lot of dressage work. At the new barn, I was only doing dressage work, and I was not jumping a lot, if at all, and I wanted to start jumping again.
   

After about a year and a half of being at the new barn, an eventing trainer, Cathy Henderson,  and some of her student brought their horses to board at the barn. Since they brought about 12 new horses into the barn, and there was not too much room, a lot of construction had to be done; to build new stalls, and also to build some new private pastures for all of the boarders.
   

I started taking jumping lessons with Cathy a little while after she moved to my barn, and it has helped my horse and me drastically improve with all of our riding. I used to get super nervous whenever I had to jump, but ever since I started jumping with Cathy, I haven’t been nervous at all. I have also been able to jump some bigger jumps than I would have imagined.
   

Before moving to the new barn, I never would have imagined being where I am now with my riding career, but now that I am where I am, I could not be happier with how everything has been working out.