July 22, 2026 
By the time you read this, my first horse show in nearly 30 years will already be over.
As I write this, it’s three days away.
I’m excited. I’m nervous. And, if I’m being honest, I’m not entirely sure what I’m about to learn.
When I decided to start showing again, I had a very specific picture in my head. I’d eventually have one of those beautiful wooden tack trunks with polished brass corners and an engraved brass nameplate. Naturally, I immediately started overthinking the nameplate. First name? Last name? Full name? It somehow felt like one of those decisions that said something about who you were.
Then I asked the experienced horse people what I should buy.
They all told me to go to Home Depot. Not a tack shop. Home Depot.
Apparently the rolling toolboxes are waterproof, lightweight, and nearly indestructible. The telescoping handle actually works. Barn staff don’t have to wrestle them into trailers. If they get rained on, nobody panics. They’re designed to be used, not admired.
So I bought one.
Then I immediately spent more on the trunk cover than I did on the toolbox itself.
Progress isn’t always linear.
The funny thing is, that wasn’t really advice about tack trunks. It was my first lesson in becoming an adult amateur. Experienced horse people don’t optimize for appearances. They optimize for what lasts.
Five months with Beau has been much the same.
Every ride, he reminds me that horses are incapable of the kind of artifice we’ve somehow accepted as normal everywhere else. In my corporate career, there was always another meeting, another title, another promotion, another layer of reading between the lines. What was said. What wasn’t said. What someone really meant.
Beau doesn’t play that game. If he’s worried about the horseflies, I know it. If he’s relaxed, I know it. If I’ve been fair, I know it. If I’ve ridden well, I usually know that, too.
He doesn’t know I used to be a COO. He doesn’t care how many people follow me on Instagram. He has absolutely no interest in my LinkedIn profile or whether I sold a company.
He wants to know if I brought carrots. He wants a refreshing bath after a ride. He wants me to listen when he’s trying to tell me something.
His scorecard is refreshingly simple.
My trainer’s isn’t much more complicated. After a good lesson, he doesn’t say, ‘You would’ve won today.’ He says, ‘Good ride.’ Or, ‘That’s the ride I wanted.’ The scorecard is about decisions. Partnership. Feel. Not outcomes.
Which brings me to this weekend.
For most of my adult life, success came with a scoreboard. Promotions. Titles. Compensation. Performance reviews. By most conventional measures, I’ve done well. Those achievements gave my family security and opportunities I never take for granted. They just didn’t answer every question I thought they would.
Now I’ve voluntarily entered another arena with another scoreboard. Only this one comes in the form of a ribbon.
Intellectually, I know exactly what this weekend is supposed to be. It’s a benchmark. Five months into this partnership with Beau, it’s a chance to see where we are. Did the work translate? Did we make good decisions? If we make a mistake, do we recover? If we rode the round again tomorrow, would we know what to improve? That’s the information I actually want.
And yet… there’s still a 13-year-old girl inside me who really likes blue ribbons.
I know a ribbon is only one person’s opinion on one horse, on one round, on one day. I know it isn’t an identity. I know it isn’t proof that I belong.
What I don’t know is what I’ll feel when they start calling the placings.
Maybe I’ll discover that I’ve built a healthier relationship with success than I had at 13. Maybe I’ll discover I still have more work to do. Either way, I’ll learn something.
Because maybe the real test this weekend isn’t whether Beau and I win. Maybe it’s whether I remember that the ribbon is only one scorecard.
After the class is over, the judge will have an opinion. My trainer will have one too. And then there will be Beau, standing at the trailer, nosing my pockets for carrots while I hose the sweat off his neck, blissfully unaware of what color ribbon is hanging outside his stall.
For him, it’ll just be another ride.
Want to see how Orchid first show went? Check out her daily recaps on Instagram!
