Irrational

Be forewarned, I am having a moment…It is 5:30 am on a Sunday morning and I didn’t sleep well.

I will post on yesterday’s show ASAP, but I wanted to get something out first. Contrary to what this post might lead you to believe this weekends show was much better. I am about to launch in to a full on pitty party for one with lots of irrational anger involved. I am struggling at the moment. You see, at this moment I HATE dressage. HATE IT.

I think the reason I hate it so much is because I am just no good at it at all.

I suck at dressage. I always have, and I am starting to think that I just always will. I have been riding dressage for over a decade and I am still terrible at it. Like TERRIBLE. I start to get delusional and think that I am getting better at it, but then reality comes knocking and I realize that I just as terrible now as I once started. Except now I know how terrible I am which makes things even worse.

When I first started I didn’t know a shoulder in from a half pass. Now I do, but am still not able to execute them well.

I wanted to riding training level this year. FREAKING TRAINING LEVEL. I didn’t think I was reaching for the moon. Over a decade in to dressage and I can’t even manage training level. That is truly just pathetic. It makes me sick to even think about it. I know people who are in a similar situation, but they don’t really work at it. They claim to ride dressage, but don’t take lessons, read books, go to clinics or show. They are allowed to be a decade in and not yet at training level. I have done all of the above and more. I have spent countless hours and dollars trying to get better.

I think this year I finally realized that I am just no good at it. I know that everyone says “dressage is a journey, not a destination” but if a person had any skill at all their journey wouldn’t take them 10+ years to get to training level! Not when they have been consistently working at it.

I cannot even tell you all the things I have given up to pursue my love of riding. I used to love dressage. I could watch tests for hours, dreaming that someday I would be able to do that myself. Reality is that I wont be able to. Are there sucky riders out there at high levels? Of course, but they have something I don’t…enough money to make it happen.

I suck at being focused, a necessity for dressage. I have worked so hard at it though. I could understand not getting better when I was only working on my dressage in lessons, but since riding Lucky I have been so incredibly focused. I make Lucky work even when I would rather be going for a hack. I work hard between my lessons. I have to face the facts though, Lucky is a difficult horse for me to ride. She is improving leaps and bounds, but I am getting worse.

I find Lucky to be a very challenging horse to ride. We just don’t click naturally. Over the past two years we have been able to gain chemistry, but it has taken time.

I have worked so, so hard to improve my riding. I want something to show for it. I have nothing to show for it though. I am getting worse. Each horse that I have ridden since Gen got hurt has had its own set of challenges. People are not going to let you lease a perfectly trained horse for not a lot of money, they are going to let you lease something unbroken, or injured, or green.

I started to think about it and I got really mad. At first I got mad at myself for being a bad rider. I knew dressage was impossible for me, yet I had to try and take on the challenge anyway. What the hell was I thinking? This is something that I can NEVER be good at. I sucked at it when I started and I will continue to suck at dressage forever. Then I got mad about all the money and time I have put in to so many horses for the past 6 years and I started to get mad at Gen.

This is all his fault. Gen loved me enough to hide my shitty riding. He would cover for me. If things had worked out the way that they were supposed to I would be showing 3rd level by now. We were going to do training level in 2006, in fact we did one show and we did well, and then he broke. Why did he have to break? He was being an idiot in his field. He didn’t need to be such a show off! He was running around way too fast and he hurt himself and he is never going to be all the way better.

It is his fault I can’t afford a well trained horse. It is his fault that I have to make time for two horses. It is his fault that I am getting worse. When I rode him I was getting better, but now I can’t ride him and IT IS ALL HIS FAULT FOR GETTING HURT.

I love loved Lexi, and Phoenix and Lucky, but not the same way that I love Gen. It is like some kind of joke that I found a horse that was so easy for me ride only to have that taken away. If I was always terrible at dressage I think it would be easier for me to walk away. Gen teased me that maybe I could do it, so realizing that I just can’t is just…frustrating.

I know Gen didn’t mean to hurt himself. I know that it was my choice to save him and keep him, and that is a choice I don’t regret at all. I just hate that this is how it is all turning out. I don’t remember my dreams very often, but I have a stupid reoccurring one where Gen miraculously gets better and he helps me earn my USDF bronze medal. I have always wanted a fairy tale ending, the kind of story that people want to read in a book.

I know that is naive, childish even. But sometimes I am just not a very rational person. Take now for example. I am in full on temper tantrum mode.

I am going to end this pity party and be grateful for all that I do have, even if talent at riding is not something I posses. Tomorrow I will write up the show, which was better than expected, and start to figure what the hell Lucky and I can do since clearly it isn’t dressage.

 

The First Horse Show of 2013 – Part 4

I knew as soon as I walked out of the ring that nothing was going to be gained by doing my second test. So many people had scratched though that there was only 5 people in my class. 5! That meant a guaranteed ribbon…and we all know how I love my ribbons! I wanted one so badly, but as we walked back to the warm up Lucky stayed in ball of tension mode. I knew before I even walked back in to the warm up that I had to scratch my second test. It wasn’t fair to Lucky. It is one thing to push through when you have a tense horse and you are riding well, but I was riding TERRIBLY. The worst I have ridden in a long, long time…and it is not like I ride that well in general. I brought her back in to the warm out of hope that she would relax, but I knew that as soon as she did I would call it a day. I tried to just walk her around, I tried to give her a long rein, I tried to use her training to get her to focus on me. I did get her body back and listening to me, but her mind was elsewhere at this point. I had fried my poor ponies brain and with my rider suckyness I couldn’t get her back. We went up to watch tryingtorides second test and I decided to stay on her just to see if just watching someone else and relaxing myself would help her.

 

Unlike before our first test, Lucky had now decided there was a boggy man in the field behind us. She would spin around trying to get a better look at it. I knew know that my days of letting her look at things had to stop so I kept turning her towards the ring again. It was a very stressful 5 minutes of me turning her back and her spinning around again. I finally decided that it she could just face the ring for 10 seconds that would have to be good enough. Eventually she managed to stop trying to find the boogy man behind her long enough that I got off. I had to hand walk her back to the trailer, and even with me on ground she was convinced she saw monsters. The great thing about Lucky is that she doesn’t spook, so even though she was clearly distressed and stressed out, she was manageable. We did need to do a lesson on personal space on the way back, but just like when I was riding her she was trying to not be crazy.

 

I untacked in record time and was looking at her hot self debating if I should take the 3/4 of a mile drive back to the farm and cool her off or try and the show grounds when Lucky did something I have never seen her do. She shook her head so hard that the lead rope I had been loosely holding while I put stuff away popped out. Were at the back of the trailer and Lucky trotted right up the ramp on to her spot. She had gone so fast my first reaction was that she was going to fall, my second was to laugh. I know that was a very bad training moment, but in her defense she is supposed to self load when we are at the back of the trailer and I do let go of the lead when it is time to load up. Dom did teach her to do that, it is just that normally I know I am asking for her to do it! I thought about backing her off and making her wait, but she literally let out a massive sigh and started eating her hay…I just didn’t have the heart to stress her out. I said goodbye to trying to ride and went back to the farm to cool her out and hose her off.

 

Even back at the barn she was tense, which is so not like her. I started to get really upset, and even started to cry that I had ruined everything. At the end of last year Lucky LOVED to show. All winter I had worked on getting her to listen to my body and in the one ride when she really needed me to be there to feel secure I totally stopped riding from the chest down and turned in to a giant handsy mess. Lucky might have been a little tense, but that bad ride was ALL my fault. I took my time making she she was cooled out before I turned her out again. As soon as the halter came off she took off away from me, something she never does. I ruined everything, Lucky didn’t even like me anymore.

 

I went back to pick up my tests and was not surprised I came in last. I took my pink ribbon and my test, but was surprised by my score. I got a 57.86%. I wasn’t even 10% away from 1st place. The ride had felt like a 40%, so I was honestly shocked that I broke 50%. When I read through the test I was shocked to see lots of 6.5′s. The comments were spot on and things like “unbalanced rider”, “too much from hand” and about 10 different ways to say how tense and resistant Lucky was, but none of them was cruel. Every comment was accurate and she even had some nice things to say like rhythmical, and straight. She even gave us an 8 on our second center line with the comment of beautifully square halt. That is why I like to show dressage, not only do you get feedback, but each movement is scored on its own accord. In the summary comments she even said “attractive horse with potential”. I let Lucky down. A lot. I rode terribly. Lucky wasn’t perfect, but she didn’t deserve to be treated the way I rode her.

 

It was our first time off the property in months, Lucky was in heat, there were massive thunderstorms that afternoon, I wasn’t feeling 100% and about a dozen other reasons why we may not have had a good day. I don’t know. I have another show this Saturday (the close ones are all right by each other this year!) so I immediately went home and e-mailed the secretary to see if I could drop down to Intro C and Training 1 (she got back to me right away saying I could). I am going to try and bring someone with me to remind me how to ride in case I forget. I also signed up for a fix-a-test clinic. My big fear that I shattered Lucky’s confidence and ruined all the hard work I put in to training her this winter. I will never forgive myself if I did that. All I can do now is get better and use this as a learning experience.

 

The First Horse Show of 2013 – Part 3

We didn’t keep it together for the rest of the ride though. As Lucky felt more and more stressed about the boggy monsters outside the ring I rode her stronger, but not better. Our first trot circle my focus was just to keep her at the trot because she wanted to break to the canter. The higher her head went the more my hands became like human side reins. I got her to listen to me for the second half of our trot circle and had hopes that we would still be okay when we headed back towards A. Whatever she was seeing was still there and she totally ignored my seat and legs, which of course made me go super handsy, which made her just block me out. It was UGLY, and I was ridding TERRIBLY! The more I used my hands, the worse my riding got. By the time I went to switch my diagonal on the change of rein part I basically slammed myself in to her in a last ditch attempt to get some reaction out of her. She did react…by shaking her head from side to side.

 

What I should have done was sit back, relax my arms, and stop fighting Lucky. Instead I tilted forward which took away my seat, let my legs bang her instead of a gentle squeeze at some weak attempt at forward, and shortened her already way too short for training level neck. Even just writing this disgust me. Lucky might have been having a hard time, but I was doing everything wrong and just making it worse and worse as the ride went out. Our first canter wasn’t terrible, she even came back to the trot when I asked her, but I had no connection, no roundness, no suppleness, no forward, and no flexibility. I tried to show a stretch during the stretch circle and that was really the beginning of the end. She threw herself on the forehand and started breathing like a dragon. Even our free walk was a mess of her taking choppy strides and shaking her head.

 

Picking her up after the free walk was a disaster. I literally was yanking at poor Lucky’s mouth at the same time as giving her leg. My poor Lucky was already stressed and now she was completely confused. The only good thing I can say about the whole walk series is that we didn’t end up breaking. So by this point in the test I have a choke hold on her mouth, sloppy legs and no seat. Great riding right? So I know what I should have done at this point is lighten up my contact, sit deep and really use my body in the trot. Instead I decided to force Lucky to pay attention by asking for everything at a 10. I am such an idiot! I used way to much of an aid to ask for the trot and of course she lept forward, causing the extra confusing reaction of me praising her (she listened) by patting her neck with one hand and pulling back even more with the other.

 

She did do a circle when I asked and even managed to launch in to the canter at the appropriate time, but as soon as she started to canter I knew I was in trouble. We have been working hard on her canter and while she still tries to pull down on the forehand, normally she can hold herself up for at least a few strides. At the show it was a beautiful uphill transition and then it was like she was pulling me down to China. The canter to trot transition is on the long side…going towards whatever she was looking at. I started to ask for the trot even before the rest asked for it…and got nothing. I tried again, stronger this time…and still got nothing. Funny thing is that I wasn’t freaking out, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stop her, but I also knew she just wanted to canter, not bolt off. She was just stressed and wanted to put her energy in to going faster. I just wanted to try and end my test on a not so terrible note. I knew I had to do the emergency rein if I wanted her to trot, so I put one hand in her mane and the other back and my fit Lucky turned about 90 degrees in a stride and thankfully slowed to the trot. It was such a dramatic move that on my test the judge had thought Lucky spooked…not that I was being a bad rider. By the time we trotted up the centerline you could see the foamed up sweat all over my poor girl. I was afraid to walk towards the judge after my test to thank her because I thought she would yell at me for being such a jerk to Lucky. I have manners though so I went up and the judge didn’t even look up from her furious scribbling and responded with a “um hmm”. You know you are a terrible rider when the judge can’t even stand to look at you. I didn’t have much time to think about it though because Lucky was still upset as we walked out of the ring.

 

To be Continued…

The first horse show of 2013 – Part 2

When we got to the show we were the 4th trailer there. Really…that was it! Tryingtoride had beaten us there and another woman in our class was also getting ready. I went to check in and sure enough people had scratched that I knew I would be getting a ribbon, which of course put me right at ease They asked if I would be willing to ride early so I high tailed it back to the trailer and finished tacking up. The footing in the warm up ring was sloppy and scary. I did a lot of moving her shoulder, haunches and neck around at the walk just trying to get her flexible before I even tried to trot on it. One half of the warm up was much better than the other so we stayed to the better part and really worked on getting her to listen. She was a little tight and not that responsive to my leg, but not bad at all. In fact, I was pretty excited to ride my test because I thought we were going to do pretty well. The show ring was above the warm up so I let Lucky have a loose rein on the walk up.

 

She was very looky, which isn’t like her, but I trust her so I let her be. We watched the last little bit of tryingtorides beautiful test and headed in the ring to do out test. As soon as I went to pick my reins back up Lucky totally stiffened up. She put her face in the air like a giraffe and her whole body went tight. I didn’t think much of it at first and instead set about mover her shoulders and trying to do shallow loops to get her to pay attention to me again. It wasn’t until we reached the other side of the ring (by A since we entered by the judge) that I thought “oh shit, my horse isn’t listening to me right now. The whistle hand’t been blown yet so I knew I had more than 45 seconds to fix the problem so I tried to do everything I could think of get my horse back. From counter flexing her to leg yielding I used my long side as best as I could when the whistle went off. I halted and did a turn on the haunches since to try and combat her going on her forehand with her head up in the air without much success. As we went back towards A she started to stare off again and shake her head, which is not normal Lucky behavior. She wanted to stop and look at something.

 

This is my fault. When we school at home if she is concerned about something I let her stop or she can go over and touch it (if possible). She is not a very looky horse normally and when I first started with her she would scoot when turned away from something that worried her, but if I just let her look she would just stand like a champ and relax as soon as she figured out what it was. I knew I only had about 30 seconds left to get in the ring, and I could tell from the way her eyes were bugging out of her head this was going to be more than a 30 second look, so I made her go forward. She was beside herself with concern as we went in to the ring. I did manage to keep her at the trot as we went up the centerline, but barely. The thing I love about dressage is that the movement scores are totally separate. Even though out centerline sucked, it didn’t mean a bad score as long as we kept it together for the rest of the ride.

 

To be continued…

 

The first horse show of 2013 – Part 1

So all week leading up to this show I just wasn’t feeling prepared. I couldn’t remember my tests no matter how hard I tried, couldn’t find my show clothes (in fact, I think I lost my show coat!!! It is not in my house and the 3 people I might have lent it too all had no idea what I was talking about), and was just a mess about the show in general. I got some sort of weird mental block about the stretchy circles, probably because we can’t do them, and would always forget to include them in my tests. Add to that a rotted out trailer tire, a stressful week at work, 4 inches of rain that week to kill the footing, and some not very good news about a family friend and I was about ready to scratch for the show by Thursday. When I didn’t even get to Lucky’s barn until after 6 on Friday and then had a terrible ride, something we haven’t had in weeks, my confidence was shaken. I decided not to braid her and to just go home and try and get some sleep because things would look better in the morning.

 

Well, I woke up at 4am with a throbbing migraine and to the sounds of pouring rain. I needed to leave my house at 7am if I wanted to have some Gen time (with this EVH1 out break I am not going to the barn after a show, only before) so I took my meds and tried to not puke with the thought in my head that if I wasn’t at least 90% by 6 am I would scratch. Sure enough at about 5:30 the meds had kicked in I felt good enough to get up and at least start to get ready. I nibbled on some crackers and kept them down so I decided to go to the show even though I wasn’t feeling 100%. After a cup of coffee and a roll on the way up to Gen’s I was glad I decided to go. The skies were cloudy, but it wasn’t raining so I was hoping for a good day. When I  hitched up the trailer (with my beautiful new tire that I had changed the night before) in one backing (normally I need to do some adjustments, I don’t often get it almost perfect first time back) I really started to get excited for the day.

 

Even though there had been severe thunderstorms over night and Lucky had been out she didn’t roll! I thought I was on a winning streak and was even more excited when I saw how wet it was because I knew a lot of people would be scratching so I might have hope for a ribbon after all (I know, I am terrible!). I had started off the morning a little nervous because I knew these tests were going to be a challenge for us, but I reminded myself I needed to calm down. I am Lucky’s trainer and trainers don’t have emotions! Tryingtoride was coming to the show also, so even though I had no cheering section at this show, I knew I had a friendly face waiting for me! I saddled Lucky at the barn and went to load her up. Even though Dom taught her how to self load last year it has been 7 months since we went anywhere so I had left myself 15 minutes to load her just in case. I needn’t have worried though because Lucky was stoked to be going to a show and happily loaded herself on to the trailer first try.

 

To be continued…

Happy Mother’s Day

Gen wondering why on earth I was letting my mother hold him back in 2008.

 

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

Growing up it was very frustrating to have a mother who didn’t ride. I had to drop out of Pony Club when I was 13 because both my parents worked and the meetings were right after school 30 minutes away. Unlike other mothers, mine couldn’t drive a truck or a trailer and therefore I never went to a pony club rally or even a pony club lesson. I didn’t have a horse growing up. In fact, my parents just couldn’t fathom spending so much money on ones hobby. They also didn’t understand horses or my love of riding.

Both my Mother’s Brother and her Sister ride. Both have owned horses, and my Uncle his wife are in the cutting horse circuit out in Az. For some reason, the love of all things equine skipped over my mother. Not only does she not get it, she is actually afraid a horses. What is a mother to do when she is afraid of horses and has a daughter that wants to ride?

After years and years of begging to take lessons my mother cracked. In 5th grade I got 4 lessons for my birthday and 4 lessons for Christmas. I know that these lessons were against my mothers better judgement, horses are dangerous after all. I think she just got sick of hearing me talk about horses and figured I would knock it off and see how scary they were once and for all. Unfortunately, her plan didn’t exactly work. Instead of 8 lessons total, she agreed to a weekly lesson when the weather was nice.

She ALWAYS worried about me riding though. As soon as she realized I was going to ride we went to the tack store and bought me a beautiful new helmet. As time went on I was allowed to lease a horse every July and August, and eventually even full lease a horse my freshman year of high school in the hopes it would help me get over my anxiety disorder. Sure enough, having a pony waiting for me helped to get me out of the house and stop worrying as much (all though we all know I still worry plenty)!

As a kid I never really thought about how much riding cost, or the time it took out of my parents lives to drive me to the barn. In fact, I was always a little resentful that my mother knew nothing about horses. Thankfully my trainer is the kindest person ever and I could call her up 10 times a day asking questions like, “why is my horses eye running” and “is it okay to use a saddle pad that is damp” because my mother had no idea.

The few time I fell off growing up would always result in a hospital visit. When you don’t fall off much, you don’t know how to fall. I can still see the anxiety in my Mother’s face each time she came to the barn to whisk me off to the ER. The anxiety was palpable and after each time she would try and dissuade me from riding anymore. I was resolute in my love of horses though.

Even though my Mom never understood it, she tried to be supportive. From the obvious things like paying for my lessons growing up to coming to each and every vet visit when Gen was hurt my Mom always tried to understand. While she is thrilled that I choose the relative safety of dressage she still gets nervous when the horse I am riding acts up. I know she was sad for me when Gen was retired, but I also know that she breathed a giant sigh of relief that I wouldn’t be riding my crazy pony anymore.

My Mom might not love horses, but she loves me. Even though I am 30 years old, my Mom is still willing to come to my horse shows and cheer me on. The one good thing about having a non-horse mother is that she has no idea what is good and what is bad. I can count on her to be at the gate with a big smile and a thumbs up no matter how terrible my test was as long as the horse kept all 4 feet on the ground. Would I have Loved Karen O’Connor to be my mother? Of course! But I have to say that I got pretty damn lucky with my Mom. She might not be horsey, but she is an awesome Mom!

What about you all? Did you have horsey Mom’s? Did your mother support your love of horses?

This is why I check my trailer before I show!!

Check out that tire!!! Good thing I found it today. I will use the truck tomorrow and change out the tire before the show on Saturday! Yikes!!