Those Closest Can Be the Most Inspiring

Hannah schooling Sol - after many years of working
for trainers,and riding horses for clients, Hannah has
achieved a life long goal of owning her own horse and farm.
 I have seen her sit "chilly" on a multitude of horses
and watching their progress and the relationship
she could build with them always left in awe.

A strange thing happened one morning.  I woke up, went downstairs, looked in the mirror, and realized I had no desire to be Buck Davidson.  It isn't as though being Buck is an option, or that I have anything against him, or that I wouldn't love to have Petite Flower on my string, or even that I don't want to compete at the upper levels (because I do, someday).  But, I don't want to be Buck, or any number of top professional riders.

What I see is in the ranks of professional riders is a lot of industry driven rather than sport driven competition, which isn't my bag.  This summer, I read news stories of long term partnerships being ripped apart due to decisions made by sponsors and barn politics.  Some folks are willing to put themselves on the line like that, which is fine if you can handle it; but, there is enough risk in horses, be it soundness or in the sport itself, that I couldn't deal with that business model to boot.

Kristyn on eBay - Kristyn bought this horse entirely
by selling goods on eBay.  Not only is she a great
horsewoman and trusted trainer, particularly of children, she
also had a day job as a Clinical Medical Counselor.
Now, she is balancing managing and teaching at Lucky Star
while expecting her first born.  My horses are currently in her
care and I can honestly say, they have never looked better!

Then there's the issue of relating to your heroes.  I cannot aspire to be like folks I cannot, in some way, relate to.  While I'd love with the technical accuracy, composure, and position some top riders have, I don't find them relatable.  Instead, my real role models may or may not be better riders than I am, but they all have qualities I would like to emulate, both in their riding as well as their horsemanship.

Sarah (and Charles) on Grace-
Sarah is an ambition young woman
raising two young MALE equestrians
while serving as staff for NCH,
working for a dressage trainer,
and starting her own business,
Recycled Sport Horses.

There are several characteristics my true riding role models share.  They are a tenacious bunch that our the well being of their horses first and find a way to make horses work no matter what life throws their way.  They have started from scratch, learned by the seat of their pants, and haven't been afraid to put themselves out there in order to improve as horsewomen.  All have been willing to branch out, finding education everywhere and anywhere.  Last but certainly not least, they are honest, loyal friends, not afraid to kick me when I need it and willing to listen to input when necessary.

What IS Fit?

Right now, I am sitting in a forced time out from riding.  The tendons involved in the broken finger I had screwed together last year adhered to the scar tissue and it required surgery to release so I could function normally (I was struggling to hold reins for a sustained period of time without straining muscles in my forearm).  Suki, in turn, is also going through a bit of a let down period.  In some ways, it's for the better, she did work hard this summer and needs a chance to grow out her hooves.  Long story short, her hoof wall got a bit brittle in August and she just would not keep on shoes.  We'll hit it hard when I'm cleared to ride again.

The Flying Sausage Returns

Now, I was expecting the grey beast to gain some weight since putting on pounds is easy for her and Kristyn, the friend with whom I am now boarding, is notorious for having round thoroughbreds.  What I was not expecting was for my dearly beloved to go from in decent shape to looking like she's expecting in a little over a month.

This got me thinking: how fit was she really to start with?  Sure, she was aerobically fit, she could go through foxhunting without getting drenched and make it through a jump lesson with enough energy to bound through many rounds of "come jump that again."  The hike straight up Algar Brook Road was nothing to her.  But, was she ever really, truly fit?

Probably not.

Real fitness, the kind I would like her to develop, takes years to build and does not let go after a month of a lighter work schedule and a month off.  This is the fitness I took for granted my old event horse, Spot, having.  It was a level of fit he gained after years of racing (until he was 9 with 55 starts), and never having much of a let down, beyond a 3 day a week schedule during finals period and the like, until the winter of 2011-2012 when I did not have an indoor.  That horse was always ready to put that final bit of aerobic fitness on in the spring and never understood the meaning of fat (for better or for worse).

Suki has yet to see that level of work, though the past year or so has been the most consistent in work, save periods off for surgery, she has had since I've owned her.  All is not lost in my goal to get he truly fit, but it's only the first step.  She has come a long way in the way she carries herself, and her level of broke-ness.  When she goes back to work soon, I'll be able to start working on her base, focusing on her traveling straight and evenly because she is trained to listen to leg-into-hand, giving, and so on.  And, we'll have plenty of time to start it slowly and correctly before the pressures of next season start peaking over the snow banks.  And for that reason, I am glad to be out of commission now, even though these are the last few weeks of above freezing riding weather.  I'll be able to get a start on her mileage for next season, and those following, before it is necessary she have level of fitness.  It isn't the rides the week before a competition that make the difference.  It is the rides weeks, months, and years before.  

The Cost of Expectations

I could not find a BCET photo from back in the day,
so here is Suki this summer
Photo by Lisa Ambrose Cook (used with permission)

Back in the day, I was one of the founding members of Boston College's IHSA team.  I absolutely loved being able to hop on a horse, with no chance to evaluate how a horse went beyond watching them warmed up by the hosting team or during other rounds, and jump a course with them.  I learned that you didn't always place by having the best round, but sometimes by having a better round than the last person who rode the same horse.  I remember one competition where a horse clearly needed a pair of spurs, he came with them; but, the rules stated riders at my level couldn't have spurs.  So, I rode the heck out of him without the spurs, and while it wasn't the prettiest equitation round, it was efficient and I placed.  Riding not-my-horse without a second though was amazing and I wasn't half bad at it.  It was fun, because as long as I tried something different that had a chance of being more successful than the last rider, I had a chance to do well.

Flash forward to a conversation Denny and I had a few weeks ago where he asserted that sometimes, we (universal) ride horses that aren't ours better than our own.  And it's true.  

This weekend, I helped Kristyn, a good friend of mine, video a few green horses she has for sale.  She taped me riding one of her horses and my project horse, Salt.  And, in a way only a friend do, pointed out that I ride the calmest, most laid back horse I ride all week like I'm on eggshells (video here, post kick in the pants).  I ride hot Morgans at work, green beans I hardly know for her, and my own atomic made, but the one I ride most carefully is this big, gas when appropriate, very good brakes, gentle soul of a green giant.  And I don't know why, beyond, he's still mine, he's really nice, and I don't want to go too fast with a good horse (and maybe I've been procrastinating selling him too long for some subliminal, financially irresponsible reasons).

Then, I hopped on the atomic mare and jump her, and while she was good to most things, we got a touch aggressive to an over-and it is we: our mutual hunger for the hang time resulting in a gnarly last three strides.  Again, my horse is harder to ride than the green six year old (for sale: London Lullaby) I had jumped hours before, only because of the expectations I have for us in the long term bled into "the now."  However, I found a that day: a friend around that brought out a little of the kid in me that said "screw it" and tried jumping the course with reins bridged in one hand, and broke the cycle with situation for which I had no expectations because it wasn't how I ride my horse.  And it worked.

You Know How to Trot, Don't you?

Recently, I found myself cantering sideways, downhill, looking into a gnarled patch of brush creeping closer by the moment.  In the background, I could hear Denny yelling at me, in that thought piercing, instant tone that anyone who has ridden with him knows.  Good thing, too, because he was getting further and further away.

TROT!  Don't you know how to trot?!  You know, it has two beats!  TROT. NOW.

Touching the bit was fairly useless, serving only to put a very jazzed up mare's head in my lap.  My leg seemed to only add fuel to the fire.  I very much wanted to be trotting, brush looming closer.  While I have occasionally used greenery to stop other horses, the atomic mare tends to nimbly find something to do with her legs (as I learned one day, with one stirrup, when she flat out blazed a new trail out on a hunt by turning too early).

TROT!  Why aren't you trotting?!  POST!  If you were out on a hack you'd know how TROT.  Agoraphobic.  You two are agoraphobic.*

Around this point, the age old wisdom "you'll end up where your look" finally came to mind.  I fixated on the man patiently waiting for us to get our act together, squared my shoulders, and willed the trot into existence.  Actually, the last part I'm a little fuzzy on, but we did end up trotting and changing direction until the fire in Suki's belly slowly cooled down.  

"Broke" in the ring now...
Photo by Lisa Ambrose Cook
Used with Permission

It's time she behave more like a broke horse.  She's a much more broke horse in show jump this year, now she needs to behave like a broke horse out here.

So we did the same thing that cooled her jets in show jump, we trotted and jumped until she trotted, not cantered, little cross country fences out in the field.  We trotted until any muscle I was hold my own tension and failure fearing tension in melted into goo.  We trotted, hopped, and plopped until the state of being wound up seemed far too exhausting for either of us to revert back to.

A valuable lesson was learned... We are not collectively broke for jumping in wide open spaces.  A winding course? Sure.  Lots of terrain changes?  Bring it on.  A jump in a vast expanse of space, brimming with possibility?  Not quite yet, not consistently quiet...yet... but, we'll be that broke soon enough.

*Fun fact: When I was five or six, I was slightly agoraphobic.  It seemed certain to me that, despite the laws of gravity, I would fall off earth into the bleak nothingness of space.  Luckily, I know better 

What Do You Do When the Problem is You?

What to do when the problem is you?

Last week, the two trainers I ride with gave me similar lectures on two consecutive days.  The first told me I need to get out of my head and stay there, that my ability was held back by my intensity and anxiety.  The second said that my academic mind focused too much on the abc of what to rather than allowing myself to feel what to do.  The bottom lined seems to be that under the layer of over analysis, I have the ability to ride...but, somehow, I needed to break free of my mind.

So, I sat down and tried to think of how.  But, thinking seems to be the crux of the problem.  It seemed as though I had reached an impasse.

Truth be told, in combination with having some unrelated, standard issue horse person drama weasel it's way into my life (how? damned if I know, I work at a private barn and board at a near-boarder-less breeding barn in part to avoid said occupancies) I hit a wall.  Hard.  How on earth was I going to get out of my own head?  What does that even mean?  Where do you start?  How do you remind yourself to not think if you're not suppose to think so much?
And as all these thoughts bounced around my head, as my shoulder and neck muscles seized into a knot, the main thing that kept me from faltering entirely in the face of a seemingly impossible task is my deep set stubbornness.*

"People seem to understand the power of practice when it comes to skills. You know you'll get better if you practice a riding skill like a shoulder-in or a right-lead canter transition. Well, you can also practice traits. You can practice courage. You can practice self-confidence. You can practice optimism. You can practice things that you might not think are able to be practiced, such as being a better friend to yourself or not always denigrating yourself." ~ Denny Emerson

The above popped up on my feed, via Lesley Stevenson, on Monday.  It struck me... I have been too stuck being the way I am because it seemed like changing would be an all or failure process.  I'm not good at accepting failure, which I find ironic because as an educator, I am a strong proponent of "just do something" and "learn from your mistakes."  And while I refuse to stop when I fair, given my innate stubbornness, I do struggle to push myself out of a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.  However, like the [questionably good idea] to try Cappuccino potato chips (trust me, not worth trying), I will try most anything once.  I decided to practice being an positive, optimistic person.

It was hard.  When I started to hear my internal voice nitpick myself or others, I had to remind myself that wasn't productive.  When I had to get on a horse that had bronco-ed me around the day before, pulling every move in the book without success, I had to swallow it down and think the best was going to happen.  And, well, it did.  Actually, the whole week went pretty well.  Riding started getting easier because I didn't give myself an opportunity to dwell in doubt.  Doubt happened, of course it isn't that simple to make it disappear, but replacing it with positive thoughts regarding the situation.  I had an amazing jump school with Suki Wednesday and some quite inspiring rides on my work projects on Friday.

  

The week culminated with a XC school that showed the progress we have made as well as the holes I need to work on in the near future before we can move up to Novice.  I'll admit, that inspired some self doubt until I broke it down for myself.  No, we are not ready; but, we are much more prepared than we were two months ago.  I am more comfortable with riding her mode forward and reverting myself back to cool to easy her out of our collective tense moments.  I might get a bit backwards when it gets technical, but we haven't been good enough to start playing around with the more technical aspects until now.  It starts seeming a lot like looking at the negative of a photo (for those of us that remember what negatives are...), you have to find the positive aspect of the negative.

I'm not done with my quest to step outside my own head, since I'm no where near there.  But, I'm starting to understand what that means.  It's letting myself asking for a bigger trot with more engagement exactly when it feels right except over analyzing if everything is right.  It's touching back to a fence when I see that we might come in to long otherwise.  It's letting myself do what I know how to do.




* Yes, this is a good example of a water down version of my every day internal monologue.  That said, it should surprise no one that I have a problem!

Different Horse, Different Warm-up

For six years, I primarily evented the same horse.  Over those years, I honed his warm up routine.  He did well with a day off the day before an event, particularly if we trailered in the night before.  Dressage warm-up was a light hand gallop up off his back to warm him up followed by a run through of test movements in no particular order, all within 20-30 minutes.  As a former "curler" with a longer back and a habit of internalizing stress, this got him thinking forward and make his job his focus.

GMHA June HT 2014
Flatlands Foto (used with permission)

At our first event of the season, GMHA's June recognized horse trial, I learned, among other things, that this warm up just would not do for Suki.  She was wound-up going to the warm up, only settled down slightly before entering the ring.  Then, she determined a third of the way through her test the judge's end of the arena was highly suspicious,  As a result, I have been working on customizing her warm-up.  She's usually best to jump school if she does something tiring, but not anxiety inducing, the day before.  This means hiking up a long road with a significant incline at the walk and trot.  The hill is about 1.8 miles to the top, and she energetically marches up it and comes back down with gusto.

GMHA Starter Trials 2014
Nick Goldsmith Photography (used with permission)

So far, this pre-game day warm up has significantly helped her take everything in calmly at events.  I am still working on the day of warm up, though it seems like a long warm up with at least twenty minutes of suppling walk work to start has had a degree of success.  She warmed up well at Hitching Post a few weeks ago, though her test still lacked a bit of focus.  Her warm up at the GMHA Starter trial was a little bit too long and she lacked energy in her test.  But, one major (positive) difference was her ability to relax and focus in the warm up.  Then she was able to remain relaxed during her test and very business-like for the remaining two phases.

The benefits of this developing warm up routine, including the hack the day before became even more apparent when I left out a piece before Huntington.  After trying out saddles on Suki in the morning, I decided to skip the pre-game hack.  It seemed less necessary, given we weren't traveling so no settling into a new environment.  And, as it turned out  it wasn't necessary for dressage.  She was calm, even a bit lazy (an issue I have subsequently begun to address).  What I didn't account for was the idea that home field cross country would be an issue in terms of excitement rather than simply being "just" look-y.  Retrospectively, the pre-game hack may have helped take the edge off what turned out to be a very geared up ride-a ride culminating in a revival of her track instincts as we passed through the finish flags, which faced the pasture her herd is turned out in.

As a trained scientist, I like to base decisions on evidence.  So far, I have support for my new warm up's effectiveness ands two scenarios where the lack of a hack resulted in a frustrating go at it.  While this is hardly statistically significant, and there are many unaccounted for variables, I am going to consider the patterns that are starting to form and develope my routines in accordingly.  

Breaking the Law: Every Action Does Not Need to Have an Equal and Opposite Reaction

When I taught, managing large classes was not always my strongest suite.  The class would get loud, rowdy, and I would get frustrated.  My knee jerk reaction was to use a louder, angry voice, subconsciously trying to match the energy level of the classroom.  Let me tell you how ineffective that is!  Believe it or not, the middle school teacher would approach this problem by whispering or saying nothing at all.  Surprisingly enough, most students would settle down when they realized that they weren't getting a reaction and were missing out on information.

Sometimes, riding an atomic mare requires meeting her dramatic moments with only the most subtle of aids or silence.  When I don't engage with her moments and stay centered, focusing myself on the task at hand, we are successful.  When all hope seemed lost in getting the left lead canter, keeping my hips and shoulders pointed in the right direction while staying calm was the final piece to teaching her she could stay balanced and pick up that lead.  Unfortunately, learning requires a lot of repetition, so it has been a struggle to make the non-reaction my response.

Finally, at Hitching Post Farm's schooling horse trial this weekend, I was able to mindfully apply the non reaction to jumping in a competition setting.  She was incredibly relaxed during jump warm up*, cantering easily to fences on a looped rein.  So I thought, "what the heck, I'm not going to touch my reins unless I have to."  As it turns out, I had no need to until an in and out that we in-ed and grazed off the B of... But, I can't blame her, we have schooled a bit angling in and out of elements of a combination without working on combinations this year.  She was fantastic once we went through the second time and I was clear with my directions.  As a result, I picked up the reins a bit and found the "too much" end of the spectrum.  She was a bit reactive to that, getting a bit squirrelly during the last bending line.  However, letting her be and focusing on finishing the course resulted in a completed course and a horse happy to start XC.

Suki was a bit all over the place when starting XC.  She had her eyes on everything, not just the jumps with the yellow flags.  Luckily, Hitching Post Farm has a great feel for what is appropriate for a schooling cross country course.  The first four fences were low, welcoming, and rounded, very unthreatening to a horse that didn't quite check in until the last minute.  Suki did not have an opportunity to formally school cross country before the event, so I considered the first few fences a means to jog her memory and find a rhythm.  I gave her a loose rein and sent her along where appropriate.  By giving her her freedom, unlike last year, I had a horse more inclined to respect my aids, such as when I asked her to walk off the down bank so she wouldn't get too aggressive.**

Jumping Fence 8
Nick Goldsmith Photography (used with permission)

The real test was the approach to fence eight.  I knew this could be a tricky fence as the approach turned toward the start box.  When I walked the course, I noted she could very easily try to run through her left shoulder and try to head for the start before noticing we were aiming for another fence set on a slanted uphill approach.  What do you know, she got going toward the start and threw a little bit of a fit about being blocked by my outside aids.  It took everything in my power to not get into it with her and make her go where I wanted.  Instead, I let go of her a bit, kept my shoulders and hips pointed toward the fence, and looked toward the approach to fence 9.  Low and behold, she came right out of her drama queen moment and jumped the fence beautifully.





* This may or may not have been related to the hack up a substantial hill the day before or the 45 minutes of dressage warm up.  If I have learned nothing else from Suki in the past year, it is that she functions better when she is just a little bit tired.

** Suki has a history of getting a little too game up and down banks.