Potatoes

The versatility of potatoes cannot be overstated. They come in all shapes and sizes and preparing potatoes can be as simple as a pan fry or as involved and nuanced as potato gnocchi.

Also, we compare ourselves to them all the time on social media. Generally, we see being a potato in the saddle as a bad thing.

Let’s change that. Let’s allow the versatile potato represent all the various ways we show up and ride our ponies.

Raw Potato
This, I am assuming, is what we all mean when we call ourselves potatoes on our instas. Lumpy, cold, unpleasant to bite into … nobody wants a raw potato. If you’re a raw potato, you formlessly yet stiffly flop around in the saddle. This potato level is to be avoided if at all possible. If you have had more than 3 lessons, you need to be out of the raw potato phase.

Baked Potato
Baked potatoes could go one of two ways: top-heavy with excess calories, or light and fluffy and just the right amount of butter and seasoning. This is an acceptable potato, but a bit boring. Either option is not great, but not the worst thing you could be/eat.

Twice-Baked Potato
It took you a long time to get to this point. But you still have a long way to go. It only gets more complicated.

Hash Browns
Rough and ready and also a morning person. You can ride, but you probably don’t wear your hair up in your helmet.

Potato Soup
You’ve leveled up from baked potato, but without an outside influence to hold you in–bowl/trainer–you end up all over the place and licked up from the floor by barn dogs.

Tater Tots
PONEH RIDAHZZZ! Akin to these are the roasted red potatoes: the petite adult riders small enough to still train ponies.

Mashed Potatoes
Ah, that “feel,” that softness, you’ve achieved it. But unfortunately at the expense of your equitation, which means you’re still pretty ineffective. Sit up. Use all your body parts independently. You look like you are about to fall off.

Potato Chips
The bane of hunter riders everywhere. Your trainer has just walked away from the in-gate.

Scalloped Potatoes
You can articulate your aids. You can be covered in a buttery béchamel without getting greasy. You look good in your whites. Let’s all strive for this sophisticated level of potato.

Vichyssoise
Simple, or complex? Not sure. What happens after riding too many horses in one day for your fitness level, or what happens when you ride when it is really, really hot. Or when you have a fever. You are potato purée in breeches, and a bit smelly due to leeks, or Nyquil. Your pony is not motivated at all by your lack of impressiveness.

French Fries
You ride hard on the weekends and not at all during the week. You like a quick and easy ride and I hope your horse is bombproof for the sake of you both.

Potato Pancakes
You have fallen off. You may need a visit to the ER, but not before you get back on and jump the damn liverpool first.