Just a quick one today, I’m headed out the door for Texas Rose…
First, big thanks to Martin of MDC for replying to everyone’s questions and comments on my MDC stirrups review post the other day. It’s not often that we get to chat back and forth with a product’s creator in the comments section! He’s still reading and replying.
Second, don’t forget about Sadie’s baby contest! It’s easy to enter and the winner gets a $25 Riding Warehouse gift card. Sadie is getting bigger and bigger by the day.
Finally, I have a few things for sale if anyone might be interested:
Animo light blue long sleeve polo shirt, size I-42 (fits like a 34-36). Also worn very little and in great shape. $50
Annie’s Tardis blue full seat breeches, size 30. Worn maybe 10 times, in great shape. $50
5.25 or 5.5 (need to measure) Nathe loose ring. $50
Full set of Tekna fancy stitched boots, open front and hind ankle in brown. Size cob – they run big, these fit Henry with some room to spare. $45
Tailored Sportsman Trophy Hunter tan full seat breeches size 30. Small light stain on the rear seat area. Good schooling condition. $45
Barn friend Bobby is also selling his Point Two Air Vest:
Brand new, never used Point Two ProAir Riding Vest – Adult Large/Red (4 cartridges included)
This air vest provides inflatable protection in the event of a fall. It clips across the chest and lays flat on the body, much like a garment, for a comfortable non intrusive feel. In the event of a fall, the CO2 cartridge is activated to instantly inflate the vest for full upper body protection including the neck area. The inflated vest will stay inflated for 10-20 seconds when it will then slowly deflate. While the vest is inflated, the rider will have full movement of arm and legs. Can be worn over a traditional body protector for extra protection. Includes saddle attachment and lanyard. Asking $500
Nothing like trying to cram all your prep for a move-up into the last week before show time! I’m not complaining one single bit, because I’m just beyond thrilled that it’s stopped raining and things are drying up. Henry’s been able to go out all week and the arenas no longer resemble lakes.
He’s equally thrilled to be back to work
Because it’s supposed to be hot and humid this weekend, I opted to cram more of my serious prep work into the beginning of the week and lighten his workload the last few days before show time. We had a dressage lesson Saturday, did conditioning work Sunday, jumped on Monday, then he had Tuesday off, an easier dressage ride last night, and gets today off, then we leave for the show tomorrow morning. For our jump school on Monday only half of the arena was dry, but it’s amazing how half of an arena feels like a gloriously huge space after a month of being surrounded by swamp. I set up a square oxer and a bigger vertical and made the best of our little area.
We were a little crooked, and it was hard to keep a consistent pace in the space, but Henry felt good considering we haven’t jumped in a while. I feel a little rusty, but hopefully he’s ready to go!
Last night’s dressage ride was really just to get him loosened up and thinking forward. At this point we’ve got whatever we’ve got, so there’s no point in trying to drill him now. I’ll be thrilled if he can continue being as relaxed for dressage at Texas Rose as he was at Greenwood and Corona. He was basically comatose last night!
They also posted ride times yesterday, and I’m very relieved to see that we’re running XC early on Sunday morning. Henry doesn’t handle heat very well and I was a bit concerned about having to do XC in the heat of the day on Saturday, so bullet dodged there. Of course, we have dressage and stadium in the heat of the day, but I can get him through those two phases a lot more easily. I spent the week sewing him an ice pack thingy that he can wear on his neck – a process that involved much cursing, blood, whining, and a burned finger. I figured if I made it I wouldn’t need it… obviously a sound strategy. I’m taking it anyway though because dammit I bled for that thing and he’s gonna use it.
I hope you’re prepared for more epic course walk debauchery, because Bobby is coming along to this event too. And here’s a gross picture of his face, because he thought he was being funny by putting this on my phone. I get the last laugh by putting this on the internet.
I think just about everyone who has competed in horse shows is familiar with nervous energy that comes along with it. If you’re one of those rare souls with ice running through your veins, count your blessings. I am not one of those people. To what degree those butterflies really affect us varies from person to person… some of us just feel a little bit of heart-pounding at the in gate, while others might be in the porta-potty barfing up their breakfast all morning.
I’ve always been the type of person that feels anxiety and nervousness at shows. I’m lucky enough that it’s never been super severe (no hyperventilating, no puking, no hysterical bawling in the warm-up ring) but it has definitely varied from almost none to feeling queasy. For a long time I tried really hard to conquer those nerves and force myself to relax. Eventually I realized how ridiculously futile that was, and it dawned on me that maybe I was looking at it from the wrong perspective. I have never succeeded in getting rid of my butterflies, but what if I could tame them and turn that nervous energy into an advantage rather than a detriment? It took time and a lot of introspection, but this is what has really helped me a lot and I’m hoping that by sharing it here it might help someone else too.
The first thing I had to realize is that nervous energy doesn’t have to be a negative thing, it can be positive too. Research has actually shown that nervous energy, when properly channeled, can help you perform tasks more efficiently and can improve memory. The butterflies are not our enemy. For me, recognizing that fact and learning how to make it positive has been the key to a happier horse show experience. That’s not to say that I win the battle with nerves 100% of the time, but it’s gotten better and better, and substantially improved after I changed my perspective on nervousness.
yes I just used a Beyonce quote
When I start feeling those butterflies creeping up on me, I take a deep breath and think “Ok self, you’ve got two choices here. You can let the nerves overtake you, fill you with doubt, and defeat you. Or you can embrace the feeling, use it to energize yourself and sharpen your focus, and go out there ready to kick some ass. Your choice.”. It’s my own little pep talk to myself, so to speak.
One of the first things we start thinking about when we feel anxiety is how many things could go wrong, and in how many ways. What if, instead, we thought about all the things that we could do to make things go well. After all, things are going to happen no matter what. We can’t do anything about that, and worrying about all the things that could go wrong does absolutely nothing positive. What we can do is figure out how to plan accordingly, how to react, and how to move past it. That’s what we’ve spent so long training and preparing for… at horse show time it’s just a matter of implementation. By the time you’ve gotten to the show you theoretically have all the tools necessary for success, all you have to do is use them. Success isn’t something that happens to you, success is something you make happen. And you can’t make it happen if you allow yourself to become debilitated by nervousness.
Whether it’s deep breathing, visualizing success, giving yourself pep talks, or even simply just smiling, the first step to handling the nerves is to stop the cycle of negativity. If you can’t get rid of the butterflies you might as well learn how to tame them and use them to your advantage.
What do you do to help calm your show nerves and/or turn them into a benefit instead of a detriment?
I am thrilled to report that the epic month-long rain has finally ended in Texas and we have a truly beautiful forecast for the week ahead. Everything is of course completely saturated so it’ll take a while to dry out completely, but we’re getting there. I even got to ride on Saturday AND Sunday. I’m not sure who’s happier, the humans or the horses. What a dreadful month May was. Henry celebrated his first turnout by pulling a shoe, so he was punished with bacon duct tape.
On Friday it was still too wet to ride anyway so I played around more with the dutch/cobra style braids. I used this tutorial that Now That’s the Spot found, and while I’ve seen many a video by now on how to do these, this one by far was the best one for me. I actually got a good looking braid on the first attempt! I’m gonna try to braid him like this at TR this weekend and see how it looks.
I also took advantage of a beautiful sunny Friday to get all my poor neglected tack out and give it a good clean and condition. Maybe I’m weird, but there’s something oddly satisfying about tack cleaning, especially when it’s really dirty to start with. I love looking at my pretties. And no, I don’t think I have enough PS of Sweden bridles.
On Saturday, Bobby (who is so narcissistic that he pretty much just scans my blog to see if I talk about him because he thinks that makes him “famous”) and I hauled over to our dressage trainer’s place for a lesson. Henry hadn’t been ridden at more than a walk for over a week, and the farrier wasn’t coming out until later that day to put his shoe back on so I wasn’t sure how sound he would be, but he was perfectly fine and ready to work. He’s really come so far in such a short period of time… I remember when it used to take 30 minutes to really get him connected, and now he’s connected pretty much right off the bat. We’ve still got a long way to go, but I can’t complain about his progress and his willingness. At the end of the lesson we worked on a few movements in the Novice test, mostly the half circle to canter depart. We never really got a good one, but Trainer helped me figure out the best way to ride it, so we’ll just do the best we can. His canter departs are really the only thing that’s still kind of icky right now. We’ll get it eventually. Until then we’ll keep getting 6’s for it and try to make up for it elsewhere.
leave it to the eventers to class up the dressage barn with a bacon-duct-taped foot
On Sunday since he had 4 shoes back on again I decided to take him out and do some conditioning sets. That’s really the first time he’s been out for a gallop (besides at shows on XC) for at least 4-6 weeks. I kept it pretty simple with 4 x 4min trots with 30 seconds rest in between, and 3 x 3min gallops (350-400ish meters per minute) with 1 minute rest in between. He worked up a good sweat but I was happy that despite the warm day he wasn’t even particularly winded at the end, and in fact would have liked to have kept going. Thank goodness for a thoroughbred, who can pretty much sit in a stall all month, run XC a couple weekends, and come out with a decent base level of fitness naturally. He should be just fine for Texas Rose this weekend.
Hopefully now that the monsoon is over (at least for a week) things will get a little perkier and more exciting around here! It’s so incredibly nice to see the sun and be able to ride again.
Yesterday while perusing the entries for Texas Rose I was delighting in the fact that there are a couple folks in my division that have been to Rolex (welcome to Novice Horse!) and it’s 2/3 professionals. This makes me super happy because of a few reasons: 1) I’ve spent all spring caring a lot about who was in my division and worrying about beating them so I could get my AEC qualifiers. Since that’s done, now I don’t have to give a single crap who I’m riding against and it’s awesomely liberating. 2) I love low expectations. I’m totally the bottom of the barrel in the group, which is 100% fine by me. 3) I get to see firsthand how the pros warm up their young horses. I’m pretty excited for that, not gonna lie. 4) I have a built-in excuse for when they all beat me. I kid, I kid. 😉
Hey look, I got Corona pictures. Also Henry is a beast.
Then I started thinking about this program that they used to have back when I did cyclocross. It was a race predictor website, and before each race it would factor in each competitor’s total points and previous performances/experience to sort out how it thought everyone would finish. I have no idea how the math worked but I loved this thing, because it almost always put me at the bottom of the pack. I got a lot of joy out of trying to prove it wrong. Granted, it was right a lot of the time, but sometimes I showed it a thing or two.
Oh cyclocross, you’re such a ridiculous sport
Can you imagine if such a program existed for horse shows and events? Obviously we already have rider and horse rankings as far as points earned or money won, from local level all the way up through the best in the world. But there’s no such thing (at least that I’ve ever seen) as a competition predictor that sorts people out beforehand and predicts a finish order. I can’t decide if it would be the best thing ever or the most humiliating thing ever. On one hand, I see it as a challenge, and nothing sets my competitive spirit on fire quite like a good challenge. On the other hand, if it ranked me high and I totally bombed, it’d be another layer of disappointment. Plus it seems like it probably wouldn’t encourage a spirit of good sportsmanship in the show community… it’s already competitive enough as it is.
Stadium at Corona
What would you think if horse sports did this? All in good fun, or total embarrassment? Coming from a horse sports background into cyclocross, it completely floored me when I found out it existed, but I have to admit it never affected me negatively. Then again I never took cyclocross nearly as personally as I take the horse competitions. My good humor might not (let’s be honest, probably would not) extend to this side of the fence.
