My Week Training as a Jockey

Sometimes in life you find yourself sitting at a crossroad. Well, I have officially reached that point. For the first time in my life, I am faced with knowing that I must soon decide what option is best to pursue in terms of a professional career.

There's one thing I know for sure, and that is that I refuse to graduate college and go home to watch countless episodes of Private Practice (do you have Netflix?? Cause if you don't, you should!) while sitting on my parents wonderfully comfortable big purple couch. That couch combined with Netflix has killed many a productive day for me. As wonderful as that sounds, I know it won't do me any good. I'm sure my parents wouldn't mind having me around. In fact, I could probably get away with being one of those kids that lives in their parents basements for the rest of their lives. Yep, my parents love me that much. However, I have seen the sacrifices and hard work that my parents have invested in me and its simply too much to waste.

Therefore, I will forge on with my journey and continue to discover where I belong. With all that said, I have been invited to spend a week training at the South African Jockey Academy. I met the headmaster, Graham Bailey, at Summerhill's Ready to Run Sale in February and expressed my interest in riding as a jockey. I will admit that riding as a jockey is probably one of the toughest jobs around. You've got to be strong and tough. Tougher then most people are when they head to work in the morning. Honestly, I'm not quite sure yet if I'm cut out for the job, but how will I ever know for sure if I don't try? I refuse to spend the rest of my life regretting having never tried. I understand how difficult it is, but I am thrilled to have the opportunity to "test the waters" of riding as a professional jockey. I'll be training at the academy for a week and will hopefully gain some valuable insight into how I feel about pursuing a career as a jockey.

Like I said, I'm at a crossroads. When I head home to graduate in a month, I would like to know in what direction I should head. I also realize that the idea of knowing exactly what I'm going to do next is  rather idealistic. The best thing at this point is for me to try to keep an open mind and explore my options. With that said, I'm very excited to spend a week training as a jockey! I can't think of anything that sounds more fun! I'm hoping I'll have some sort of enlightenment about the future, but we'll see. I also need to relax, take a breath and keep going...

I'm not sure if I'll have internet there or not. After all, this is Africa so you just never know. I would love to be able to blog through my experience, but if there is no internet access then I'll just have to blog about it when I get back to Summerhill next weekend.

Well I'm off to my next big adventure!

Cheers guys!