Samara Heinrichs Prak

A while ago Holly Grayton asked if I’d write another article for her magazine Alberta Show Jumpers (sorry, no spoiler alerts for that). I have seriously neglected any sort of writing this spring and was struggling to come up with a topic. Just last week I was in the arena and realized that Holly’s deadline was coming up quite quickly. I asked the ladies who were also in the arena riding if they had any great suggestions. Now, for those of you who don’t know, Lindsay Beadle and her mom Julia recently made the move to Creekside with their business. Lindsay, rather glibly, pipes up and says, “Why don’t you write an article about professionals sharing facilities?” I immediately had to laugh at this, as the thought had already crossed my mind. She follows that up with, “you could call it ‘Novel thoughts by Samara.’”  So, we have Lindsay to thank for my first blog post in way too long. I did think her answer was slightly too sassy for Holly’s magazine, which just means you’ll...

Just before Christmas I went fencing for the first time, thanks to my good friend Shauna. It may seem like a strange bucket list item for some of you, but given that my favourite movie is The Three Musketeers (I know, please don’t judge me), I always thought it looked like fun.  And indeed, I had a great time. Shockingly (or not for those of you who know me) I was deemed “aggressive” by the person teaching me. Little did he know who he was talking to…. En Garde is a French warning that translates to “[be] on guard”. It is defined as: a direction to be ready to fence, taking the opening position for action. This all sounds like positive, affirmative action in fencing. One must be “en garde” and ready to engage. However, it was not at all what I expected, and significantly more exhausting then I had banked on. I have definitely not conditioned my arm muscles to be fencing fit and maintaining a fencing position had my arm and hand shaking from strain by the end.  ...