Author: Amanda C

It’s hard being an equestrian. This sport is not easy; in fact, a lot of the time it can be downright defeating. It seems like we all learn to survive, and thrive, on the little moments. For some it’s a hard-fought ribbon, for others it might be a quiet trail ride, or even something more simple like a therapeutic grooming session. Whatever it takes put a smile on our face and a happy, fuzzy feeling in our soul.

And sometimes, in those quiet little moments that otherwise seem so insignificant, it’s someone else’s words that can bolster our spirits in momentous ways. They probably don’t even realize the weight that their words carry, but when we hear them they instantly warm us to our very core and make us feel like all the blood, sweat, and tears have been worth it.

Maybe it’s the trainer that says you have a great seat. Maybe it’s the vet that says your horse looks amazing. Maybe it’s the friend who says they wish their horse was as good about xyz thing as yours is. Whatever it may be, it’s a compliment that stays with you and helps get you through the hard days, or makes you feel an intense sense of pride in what you’ve accomplished.

In the past two weeks I’ve heard the exact same sentence from two trainers. I’m not going to lie, their words meant more to me than is probably reasonable, but I can’t help it. They both said “You’ve done a great job with this horse.”. Both times, tears immediately sprang to my eyes (and I am not a cryer, crying is the absolute worst, there’s no crying in eventing, crying is only allowed in private, etc) and I had to grit my teeth to be able to swallow the flood of emotion. It’s a simple sentence, but one that carries so much weight with me.

I’ve always had young, green horses. Most of them I’ve put some miles on and re-sold, moving on to the next project. Henry was originally purchased as a project as well, but he’s become so much more than that. He’s been a bit of a challenge for me, and I constantly second guess myself. Am I doing the right thing? Is this what’s best for him? Am I bringing him along correctly? These are decisions I’m sure all of us struggle with. I mean… if I’m asking the question to myself, I think I’ve done a decent job with him, but it’s SO important to me that it be true, it holds more weight when other people (who’s opinions I greatly respect) say as much, especially unprompted. This horse is just so genuine and so honest, I feel an extra sense of duty to make sure I don’t mess him up.

That responsibility sits on my shoulders all the time, and guides every decision I make with Henry. So when two different pros who have watched Henry and I’s relationship develop over time tell me that I’ve done a great job, that compliment goes a lot deeper than they might realize. The sense of pride that I felt in those moments means more than any ribbon ever could. As we slog through our day to day struggles, doing all the hard work it takes to make us better, I’ll always keep those words stored away in the back of my mind, and feel a little bit more confident in my choices and abilities.

So in the interest of taking a moment to celebrate our small victories, I want to know– what’s the highest compliment that anyone has ever given you, and what did it mean to you at the time?

After Henry went XC schooling on Friday afternoon, he seemed a little confused to see me again bright and early on Saturday morning. Bobby was going on a very low key, informal XC school and I figured I’d tag along too, just to ride off-property and also to act as Bobby’s Scraper if he fell off and died.

I will now explain how the day’s events unfolded, and why Henry thinks I have committed the ultimate betrayal.

He unloaded, looked around, and went “I KNOW THIS PLACE! I RANFASTJUMPEDBIG HERE AND WON RIBBONZ! HENNY EXCITED! XC TWO DAYS IN A ROW? BEST WEEKEND EVER!”. Then I started tacking him up…

and he went “Wait a minute… mom, dis the wrong saddle…”.

Then I got on, Bobby went off on Halo to warm up, and I… well… I made Henry dressage.

In the XC field.

The very XC field where he attained (in his mind) glory, fame, and riches.

First he was confused, then he tried his very best eggbeater trot, then he neighed for Halo to come save him, then he just gave up and dressaged. But with the saddest, grumpiest possible demeanor, of course. What fresh hell was THIS? Once he gave me some good work I trotted him over a tiny log, which made him a little happier, then finally I just went and parked him in the water jump. His ears immediately went back up. Because standing in water = going XC, obviously.

Then he supervised Halo while Bobby galloped and jumped some fences

and gave me the nastiest glare when we went back to the trailers and got off. We came all this way to dressage? When there were perfectly good fences to be jumped? Obviously I must hate him.

After a few handfuls of cookies he seemed to forgive me a little, but he still made it very clear that I completely ruined what could have otherwise been a fun time. Worst. Day. Evar.

Guess who finally got a pro ride on XC for the first time ever? That’s right,this guy:

I’ve had this brewing in the back of my mind for a while. Henry is super solid at Novice but I feel like he just needs a bit more confidence to run Training (at least with me), and since a few of the Training fences still make me think I might die, who better to put those miles on him than my coach? I’ve never seen her die, not even once. She’s the confident ride he needs right now.

I was both really excited and a little nervous at the same time. The only other pro ride Henry has had was the one last year from my dressage trainer. No one else besides me has ever ridden him XC. He’s a pretty solid dude (I’ve broken his spirit) so I figured behavior-wise he would be ok, but I kept thinking “What if she hates him? What if she’s like ‘omg this thing is horrific, you’re gonna die!’ or ‘Nope, he needs to start all over.’?”… those are all sane, rational things to lay in bed and worry about… right?

She got on, was warned about the spookiness while walking (which he displayed approximately one minute later when another horse spooked and he split all 4 legs in different directions with his belly two feet off the ground), and off they went. Luckily within just a few minutes she said she loved his canter, and then once they started jumping she said she liked him, and by the end she loved him and was trying to keep him. Because Henny is the best.

He jumped through the water (after spooking while walking past the hose), the ditches (after giving them all the stink eye as we walked up), the banks (superman impression is still solidly in place), the Weldon’s Wall (more stink eye), and then the mound, taking all the Training options with no issues. Coach praised him highly for how adjustable he was and his rideability. I explained that yeah, that’s the problem–he always does what I tell him and I have horrible judgement! Poor Henry, he is long-suffering.

So I’ve decided to have her run him Training the first week of Coconino. My pride really wants me to be the one in the irons, but the horse’s greater good trumps my pride any day of the week, and I really think that having her run him will be great for his confidence. And, after all, the whole point is to build a smart, happy, well-schooled horse, so that’s what we will do. He can have a good run around Training the first week with her, do the Novice 3 Day the second week with me, and hopefully come home having learned a lot. Besides… it might be fun to just play Owner for once.

I haven’t posted much about our dressage rides lately. Partly this is because I really don’t have any media, and blog posts are useless without relevant media. But mostly it’s because the day-to-day dressage stuff is pretty boring and I don’t want to kill anyone via boredom.

So, I will try to sum up the past couple months of dressage work as painlessly as possible. Be forewarned, the only dressage media I have to offer you is from when I set my phone in a jump cup, pointed it at one side of the ring, and proceeded to ride. That led to 45 minutes of footage, the vast majority of which was empty space, and the rest of which was tiny, dark, and boring. I condensed it to 5 minutes of video… if you really hate yourself and want to test your endurance, here it is. Knock yourself out. Otherwise I just popped out a few short GIFs to break the below text.

Anyway, getting to the point… I’ve had a much more rideable horse these past couple months than ever before. Instead of being the king of fake contact, I’ve actually been able to ride Henry into REAL honest to goodness contact. It’s still not automatic, but I’m able to get him there faster and faster. He still has moments of tension where he comes out of my hand and tightens his back, but I don’t really expect those to ever go away completely.

In general though, I can’t complain. Partly I think the change is due to Henry just naturally progressing in the work, but I also think that as I’ve started asking more from him, he’s stepping up and trying to deliver. Our rides aren’t simple and easy anymore, where I’m happy if he keeps his wits about him after some shoulder-in and a couple of canter transitions. Now we’re working HARD, doing things that are more difficult, doing them more often, and expecting better quality in the work we do. But he’s finally letting me do all of this without getting flustered or upset, for the most part. If he does get upset, it’s possible to get him back pretty quickly and move on, which is something that used to never happen. Not so very long ago I would completely lose all of his relaxation after we cantered.

We’ve had a couple dressage lessons where we’ve really tried to emphasize haunches-in, and I’ve carried that over to our regular work. This is incredibly hard for Henry and we still only get it successfully maybe 5-10% of the time. He’s trying though, so that’s what matters. His lengthenings have gotten better and so have our 15 meter circles. We also started playing around with how I ask for trot-to-canter departs, and those have gotten a bit steadier too. Not every time, but again, in general.

I feel like the quality of his trot has improved a lot, too. We’ve been working A TON on transitions within the gaits (“lots of different trots, constantly changing and adjusting” as Trainer says) and I’ve definitely noticed a difference in his balance. I’ve tried to step away from the idea of riding parts of the test and focus more on the whole point of dressage – gymnasticizing the horse. I want him stronger, more supple, and more rideable, and I figure the rest will fall into place as we go.

I don’t think that there’s enough improvement to really make a difference in our scores yet… there are still moments of tension and resistance that are going to cost us overall points. But I feel like he’s going WAY better lately, definitely more correct, and I like the path that we’re on. Him being more rideable makes it more fun for me too, and it means that maybe we can actually start making some noticeable progress.

I’m still majorly jonesing for a Devoucoux Loreak though… I just can’t get my position right in anything else and I’m permanently frustrated by it right now. I refuse to touch my Coco money though, so I’ll just have to deal with it for a while. Maybe once the fall season is over I can sell the Childeric and try to find a Loreak? One can dream.

Last week while chatting with one of the Riding Warehouse ladies (shoutout to my peeps!), she asked if I’d ever thought of making a wish list on Pinterest for things that I want/need. My answer was no… it had never crossed my mind. To be honest Pinterest scared me a little and all I had ever done with it to that point was collect a bunch of super nerdy Narnia/Harry Potter/Doctor Who quotes. I don’t want to put salad in a mason jar, or put glitter on my keys, or make a myriad of cupcakes that in no way will end up looking like Pinterest promises they will. Crafting is my own personal version of hell.

But then I put my irrational Pinterest fears aside and thought about the wish list, and realized that it was actually a really good idea. Some websites have their own wish list capabilities, but on Pinterest you can pin items from several different sites all in one place. Plus when you pin something, Pinterest adds the direct link, and you can edit a little note field to put whatever size/color you want. This could be super helpful for friends and family when it comes to buying gifts. I know that I’m a super difficult person to buy for, but I always have things that I either perpetually need, or want but can’t justify splurging on (yet). So I pulled up the Riding Warehouse website in one window, Pinterest in the other, and got to work.

The resulting list is kind of amusing… I’ve got everything from horse treats to an equine heart rate monitor and a whole lot of stuff in between.

Weird? Absolutely. Useful? I think it will be. It’s a hell of a lot easier than trying to remember all the little things I want, and it’s easy for people to peruse it at their own leisure and pick from just about any price point. Plus it was super fun to make, so there’s that…

Does anyone else have a wish list type of thing like this?