Finding the motivation to write this evening after a very subpar day at our show today was not easy. But such is life with horses … full of ups and downs. They’re not machines and they’re all entitled to a bad day here and there as long as you can put it in the rearview mirror and move forward.

Carrie Wood yearned for a horse when she was growing up. She used to pore through the Washington Post classified section, circle ads for horses that were for sale, and leave them on her father’s desk.

“I had hopes,” she said. “I had hopes that someday we could have a horse.”