#yaacademy

When I think about the books I read growing up, the Saddle Club or the Thoroughbred series. They revolved either around English riding or thoroughbred horse racing. Though the Saddle Club had a friend (Janie, I believe her name was) who rode western on a ranch that they visited in the summer, no one at Pine Hollow rode western. Or saddle seat for that matter. Certainly no one drove or did vaulting.

Which is why one of the decisions I made when I created the Divine Rein academy was to not just focus on all magic users which exist in my Musimagium universe, but also to include all equestrian disciplines, even those that didn't involve riding at all.

A good example is the main character Lizzi who rides both English and Western dressage. In her cohort is Ryder, who has a spinal injury and does driven dressage. She meets with another student who does vaulting, and then there's other disciplines too like saddle seat. As someone who has been at barns with multiple disciplines, I thought this probably represented the equestrian world better, but also, to be honest, I wanted to write and read about more than English disciplines, though when I did ride, that was the style I did most often.

I suspect this is why in my equestrian literature series, this is why the main character does agility. Since I don't ride, these days that would be what I'd be competing in if I competed. I need to do some fencing work so I can make an "arena" of sorts, and then I'll probably start working on this.

If you like a variety of equestrian representation, I hope you check out the Divine Rein Academy series. The first book is available now for my patreon subscribers or will release on May 21.

Pre-Order Divine Rein Academy Book 1 today