Dear Rita,

The other exciting thing that happened last weekend in my horsey world is that The Wall Street Journal quoted me in an article it published about Totilas.

Of course, in keeping with my perspective on the non-perfect world, the article has a few glitches.

Dear Rita,

Since I am writing this blog in order to include you on the inside of my professional life, I will continue the saga of how Catherine Haddad Staller manages to pull herself out of a blue funk and get back on her feet.

Dear Rita,

It’s been a long time since I’ve written to you. Six weeks actually, but those weeks felt like six months. Sometimes I have to step back from my sport and dig deep for a reason to keep doing it. That can take hours, or it can take months depending on how strong I am and how much time I take to actually think about it.

Dear Rita,

Teaching has been a passion of mine since I began riding horses as a young girl. Nowadays, the more I learn, the more I want to teach. The more I teach, the more I want to learn!

Dear Rita,

When Michelangelo was asked how he would sculpt an elephant, he said, “I would start with a block of stone and take away all that is not the elephant.”

I kept this concept in my head when I rode the World Cup Final at Leipzig last Saturday night. In the end, all that really matters is the masterpiece that emerges. The pieces that you chip away are just Schrott (“scraps, bits to be thrown away” in English).