Honesty and in all fairness

For everyone who remembers me from the days of FHotD, you all know I can be rather outspoken at times and have no problem saying what I think. I can also be about as subtle as a brick thru a window at times, blunt and as one of my friends told me one time- "I know you'll be honest with me, even if it is brutally." He knew he could ask me anything and get a straight up, honest answer without all the gooey sugar coating or outright lying some people will do to spare the feelings of others. If someone is truly your friend, you *should* be able to tell them that something they are doing concerns you and they should hope that you *would* step up and say something if you see things going south for them.

So what does all of this have to do with the horses?

Well over the years and on the different blogs, I know there have been times that my comments or replies have rubbed people the wrong way, been taken the wrong way, been misunderstood or come across as rude, insensitive and maybe even downright mean. Most often that was not my intent. I have not "gone after" anyone in email- sending them "hate mail" nor have I blocked or deleted anyone's comments on my blog for pointing things out where I may have misspoken or contradicted myself, because honestly, I try not to do that to begin with.

I have noticed however, different things that have disppointed me in what I may have thought about someone and make me question my personal knowledge of and perception of them as well as other things about them.

We all know that posting online is opening ourselves up for critiscism. Good or bad, people are going to say something and respond. If we post photos or video, there is always good and bad to be found, and with the bad, there is room for improvement. If there is an issue with something, I try to offer a solution or ask- "Have you considered trying this?" unless there is an obvious solution to the problem, then I will come right out and say what it is.

Sometimes people have issues with their horses at home, sometimes it is at competitions. Some bloggers it seems like they never quite 'get there' because their horse(s) seem to come up lame, injured or otherwise taken out of the running in some way, shape or form. I feel bad for people that this happens to, but I also question what's going on that their horses all seem to be 'falling apart', breaking down and things just keep going to Hell on them.

I have also noticed a few people who have claimed- If *THIS* ever happens to MY horse, I will no longer do *THAT* with them. *That* being compete with them in whatever their chosen sport is- Jumping, barrel racing, endurance, or __________ fill in the blank. I picked jumping, barrel racing and endurance because those seem to be things that are A) popular with bloggers and B) tough jobs for our horses. But then even after proclaiming they will stop competing their horse in their chosen event, a few months down the road and guess what? They talk about taking their horse to the comepetitions and entering them to compete.

Now most of you who have seen pictures my OTTB mare or know of her, know she has a huge knee. It was injured at the track, long before I got her and it is why she no longer races. I knew this before bringing her home. It will forever be an issue to deal with. I also swore I will never expect her to jump and I never will. I have seen her bouncing around out in the pasture, going airborne and coming down on that leg and racing around without any problems, but still, I'm not going to put her over fences no matter how small they are or how much she may actually enjoy it. Taking her to the arena and going thru the barrel pattern a couple of times was all in fun. She had never done barrels before in her life and although she wasn't half bad at it, I'm not going to start patterning her and expect her to run and win money at it. For one thing, it doesn't happen overnight even for very talented horses, riders or both and more importantly, it's not fair to her.