Thank you Zexious for the welcome.

Nice to be welcomed, thank you ranchingurl

Welcome John!

This is quite a journey you've embarked on. You'll find that a lot of us are pretty hardcore horse people, however, we love to talk horses, so will go on - at length! - about anything horsey! But be warned, horses are highly addictive, and once you've got the bug, there is no cure.

As an entrepreneur, you'll appreciate that riding and horsemanship is most often about problem-solving. I know that as an academic, that is something I enjoy. You'll also find that horses demand your full attention. You have to be in the moment with them, because after all, they are a very large animal that is programmed to flee from predators. Predators can be a wolf, or just a plastic bag flapping in the wind. My mare freaked at kids on bicycles the other day.

They will test you, push you, and then reward you tenfold with a trust that is difficult to comprehend because it should go against all their instincts. But at the end of the day, horses make your life richer and fuller. And life is too short not to explore new passions!

So keep us informed on your journey! What's next? Riding lessons perhaps?