It seems like most of the nation has been plunged into a gross, horrid, disgusting arctic cold front within the past few days. Apologies. I think it’s partially my fault.

My list of grievances over the preceding week are now obvious, in hindsight. It probably started way back in Ocala, when I was browsing through all the sunshirts and thinking how it was really time that I revamp my collection. Most of my sunshirts are going on their 5th year, and since this is Texas, I wear them a good 10 months of the year. So I bought a new one while I was there, a Tredstep Sun Chic, which I actually quite like. Then a few days later Karen posted on facebook about the new EC Erna shirts, and I had a coupon code, so I ordered a couple of those too.

Yeah, I bought 3 new sunshirts because I thought it was spring already. I got cocky.

I also ordered my first big gallon of fly spray for the year, and the boys’ spring dewormer. Last week the flies were SO BAD, I even commented “Ugh these flies, it never got cold enough this year to really kill them!”. THAT WASN’T A CHALLENGE, MOTHER NATURE.

And then I finally tucked my one pair of fleece lined breeches away on a shelf in the closet, thinking we were done with that mess, where they sat for 2 whole days before I was digging them back out again. Kind of similar to a few days prior, when I was cleaning out my truck and came across the neck cover I had ordered for Henry when all the HUG blankets were on sale. I vividly remember thinking “I didn’t even use this thing once this season”, and I put it in a corner of the garage, still in it’s packaging. Ha. Ha ha ha ha.

My final grievance (that I can remember anyway) was daring to admire all the wildflowers that have started to pop up in our jump field. They’re a very pretty orangey pink color, and they always pop up a couple weeks before the bluebonnets start to bloom. The grass is green. Things are looking alive again. It’s pretty. I like wildflower season. It’s one of the few times that Texas isn’t hideous. I got excited.

So now, here we are, and it’s 24 effing degrees. The “feels like” is 18. Which, admittedly, is better than yesterday when the “feels like” was 16. Nothing like a 15mph freezing wind to remind you that NO, in fact, IT IS NOT QUITE SPRING YET. I can practically hear Mother Nature cackling, asking me how I’m liking those meshy sunshirts now. She is kind of a witch.

Of course, it’s supposed to be mid-70’s again by the weekend, so we just have to hang in there until she finishes her tantrum. Note to self, don’t order fly spray before March next year. Geez.

The one good thing about all this, I suppose, was watching Presto’s reaction yesterday when I put his sheet on. He’s so damn hairy that he’s only worn that thing once this season, so it’s mostly just sat around and gotten dirty. Yesterday though, he thought it was the most fun thing ever.

And maybe I shouldn’t laugh while watching the naughty baby horse likely destroy his clothes, but I can’t help it. I bought that thing on sale anyway, and it won’t fit him next year, so if he murders it, he murders it. The sheer joy he got from pulling on that flap was totally worth it. He never fails to entertain.

Hope everyone is staying warm out there. Hard to believe that in a few months we’ll all be complaining about the heat.

Continuing on this trend of having a lot more lessons than we normally do, we hauled out again on Saturday… but this time for a dressage lesson. When was the last time I had a dressage lesson? I don’t even know. Last summer probably? But 1) I wanted Trainer to see Henry in his new bit, to see what she thought, and 2) I’ve been texting her recently about a couple of issues I’ve been having on the flat, and she wanted to get her eyes on it.

As soon as I got on, Henry was pissed off and tense as hell. We were in an arena full of jumps, in his dressage tack, and he was pre-done with this bullshit. He hasn’t felt that awful right out of the box in a long time. When he’s like that he just tightens his back into a board, takes teeny tiny horrid steps, and puts his tail in helicopter mode. All you can really do is push push push him forward, riding him over tempo for a while, and wait until he starts to get more in front of your leg and let go of his back a little. Honestly he used to be like this more often than not, especially in warmup at shows, so I was having flashbacks to Past Henry. Nothing like flashbacks to give you perspective on how far you’ve actually come.

After about ten minutes he finally started to give up a little, and we were able to begin addressing the issues I’d been having. Turns out they were both connected. Who saw that coming? Literally all of us.

My first issue is that I’d been having a bit of a problem getting him to connect as well in the outside rein when we’re traveling to the left. At home I noticed I was overbending him to the inside, and when I started to think of almost more of a counterbend, it was better, but still not quite there. Trainer immediately said “his haunches are falling out to the right”, and I’m like “wow I’m dumb, DUH!” and we starting working on controlling that hind end, almost riding the haunches slightly left. When I got it, he came into the right rein just fine. When I stopped concentrating on where his haunches were, they snuck right again, immediately evidenced by a lack of connection in the right rein. And so we went, back and forth for a while. This’ll take some work and diligence on my part.

My other problem, that to be honest has plagued me forever, is my rogue left hand. As Henry has moved along in his flatwork and his balance and frame have lifted, so too have my hands. Well… the right one has anyway. The left one likes to wander around doing it’s own thing, taking sporadic vacations somewhere near the withers. I can only keep my hands up and even if I concentrate on them constantly. Otherwise, next thing you know, that left hand is down the street at the corner gas station, drinking a forty wrapped in a brown paper bag.

But hey, every time Henry’s haunches started sneaking right, guess what my left hand did? Yup, you guessed it. Dammit.

What we have here is a good old fashioned straightness issue.

When we moved on to the canter it was a little more evident to me, especially travelling left (how did what used to be our good direction now become our bad direction?). After about a lap Trainer said “think about bringing your right seat bone a little to the left” and omg. The difference was immediate and obvious. He tricks me a little into shifting my weight a tad to the outside, which exacerbates that crookedness in the hind end. As soon as I thought more about bring my outside seatbone slightly in, everything got so much straighter and I actually had a horse underneath me. Witchcraft, I tell you.

I was kind of glad that Henry decided to show up and be a turd, because it really brought all the “bad” to the surface and made it easier to pinpoint things. Now I have plenty to work on at home. Maybe we shouldn’t go so long between dressage lessons.

Hillary got a few clips that I threw together into one. It’s awesome to be able to go back and hear Trainer’s words again and see what she’s seeing, so thanks Hillary! Usually if I have any video from dressage lessons it’s because I begged Trainer to take it, which kind of interrupts us both. Being able to see and hear it this way is much more helpful as I move forward and try to work on things by myself.

Oh, and the verdict on the Neue Schule bit from literally everyone is that it’s fantastic. I knew it felt like an improvement, but seeing the video, there’s no doubt. It’s a much better fit for the shape of his mouth, and he seems a lot happier to go to it and stay there (when I get him straight and keep track of that delinquent hand, anyway). The chomping is completely gone, and he’s not diving down behind it and then bouncing up off it like he would do in the KK. Seriously need to write up a full review soon, because Trainer wrote down her feedback on it as well, and it’s gold.

Today is supposed to be one of the coldest of the winter so far, so we might put the dressage to rest until tomorrow or the next day. I feel re-invigorated about it though, ready to take what we learned and chip away at it at home. Our scores have been decent enough since we moved up, ranging from 30 to 34 (with an error), but I know this horse has a really solid test in him, if I can do my part to unlock it. That is my mission. Along with everything else, of course, like trying to get him around 1.10m well, and gallop and jump all the Prelim stuff which is literally big enough for a family of hobbits to live in and technical enough to short-circuit my brain. Ya know… no big deal.

Who’s idea was it to take 3 hard sports and combine them into one?

Although I’ve been giving priority to all of my mindset and mental training books lately, I’ve still managed to squeeze in a few others! One I was admittedly slightly hesitant about, because it’s written by Denny Emerson, and I’ve historically had a few definite disagreements with things Denny has written on his facebook page. To be fair, he’s one of the few top names in the sport who puts himself out there constantly, never shy to offer an opinion, so it’s pretty natural that I don’t agree with everything he says. That would be true of anyone if they shared every opinion they had.

Denny is an indisputable legend in our world though, and I do agree with him whole-heartedly on many, probably even most, things. The importance of conditioning, his stance on thoroughbreds, his dislike of gadgets and harsh bits, etc. So when his new book, Know Better to Do Better, came out, I was curious. The line under the title says “Mistakes I Made with Horses (So You Don’t Have To)”. Which… if that’s designed to pique my interest, it succeeded. Of course I would love to hear about the things that older, established horsemen have learned the hard way. I make plenty of mistakes on my own, I would love to learn from someone else’s lifetime of experience.

When I first started reading through the book, I thought that it was a bit more basic than I was hoping for. There’s a lot about how to choose the right horse, generalizations about different breeds, basic horse management, and all that core stuff. Someone newer to horses, or maybe someone who has mostly been raised in a lesson program rather than coming up through the working student/barn management route, would probably get a lot more out of those sections than I did.

I always love to look at a book’s Table of Contents, so here you go!

Then we started getting into the “Horse Training” and “Rider’s Emotional Makeup and Character Traits” sections, and here is where Denny won me over. Well okay, there was one part where he briefly tried to address the common issue that amateurs have – finding time to ride – that I found really lacking. I don’t really have that problem, but a lot of people do, and I feel like he mentioned it but didn’t actually offer any advice on how to work within a time constraint. That was disappointing.

But in the Horse Training section he talked a lot about the importance of having a horse that is fit enough to do it’s job comfortably, how best to communicate with your horse, tips on handling tense or nervous horses, warming up, clinics, developing a better eye for a distance (spoiler alert, its about the canter), etc. I got a few good tidbits out of this section. Maybe not earth-shattering things, but definitely good reminders that I always need to hear.

The best part to me, and the part that I think ANY rider will get something out of, is the Rider’s Emotional Makeup and Character Traits section. He starts off by addressing the fact that humans are predators by nature, and horses are prey animals by nature, and what this means when it comes to how we interact and communicate. Understanding this, and all that it entails, has been so incredibly vital to me, and something that IMO often isn’t addressed enough in the English disciplines or riding books in general.

He also talks a little about overcoming fear, although I don’t think that part is particularly helpful compared to everything else I’ve read on the subject, and regaining confidence, which I DID find helpful. My favorite section in this chapter was the “Teach Him vs Make Him” part, addressing our mindset when it comes to working with and training our horses… I found myself going YAASSSSS THIIIIIISSSS the whole time.

One thing Denny does always talk about, throughout the book, is the importance of long marching walks and how to put a good foundation of fitness on a horse – something I 100% believe in and do with my own horses from day 1. He’s from the “old guard”, the days of the long format, as well as being a long distance endurance rider, so his opinions on stuff like that should be highly regarded. It’s something we’re losing a bit in the modern day version of this sport, I think.

As you move through the rest of the book, there are sections addressing rider fitness, moving up the levels, talent vs work ethic… on and on. If you want a book that covers a huge variety of topics, this one is it. There are several small inlaid sections about particular horses he had during his career, and things he would have done differently with them if he knew then what he knows now. Stories like that are always super interesting to me, because I’m sure anyone can identify with those “if only” feelings.

As with Denny’s facebook page, there are parts that I don’t totally agree with, but way more parts where I found myself uttering an amen. He’s never afraid to lay it all there and say what he means, for better or worse, and he doesn’t sugarcoat things. Agree with him or not, you can’t deny the fact that Denny is a horseman, through and through. Putting the horse first and being morally and ethically responsible were undercurrents that ran throughout the entire book. Denny also understands that not every rider is or wants to be an upper level rider, and doesn’t think that automatically means they’re “less than”. I have nothing but the utmost respect for both of those viewpoints, increasingly rare as they are. I think Denny is better at seeing the big picture than many of the riders who are still at the peak of their careers.

There were a few sections where I found myself wishing he’d said more, or addressed the topic in a more in-depth way, but in a book with this much variety, I can see how that would have gotten quickly out of hand. Overall I think that a rider of just about any level or discipline would find something helpful contained within the pages of this book. There’s just so much knowledge coming at you from all directions, it really does touch on just about everything.

I love a good blog hop, especially if it means I get to live in Fantasyland!

Viva Carlos wrote: In a silent fit of anger at my job I began day dreaming about what life might be like without my job, not what I would spend my money on (ponies naturally) but how I’d actually spend my days…

I am assuming for this particular exercise that I am somehow independently wealthy, since I am jobless but still able to spend money on ponies? And since I’m independently wealthy, I obviously now have lots of ponies and my own farm. Obviously.

5:30am – Wake up and head to my lap pool for a swim. I like waking up early, I can’t sleep past 6 anyway, so I’d still get up at my usual time. Also I love swimming, especially early in the morning, but hate people near me, so the only solution is my own private lap pool at home. I’d be in it every day for sure.

6:15am – breakfast and an hour or so of wasting time on the internet/blogging. This is one of the biggest perks of living in this day and age, the ability to mindlessly surf the internet and waste ridiculous amounts of time.

7:30am – wander out to the barn. The morning would be reserved for riding.

11:00am – Get distracted and start piddling. Spend an hour trying to fix a gate or brainstorming a new XC fence or dragging the arena, or… shit, maybe I’m just out in the pasture doing donuts on the Mule for fun.

12:00pm – Wander into town to hit the feed store or tack shop. Grab lunch with friends.

2:00pm – Back to the farm to spend the afternoon working with the babies! Because obviously I have my own little mini breeding operation now, with a couple of foals every year.

4:00pm – back in the house to shower and waste more time on the internet, finding out what happened all day while I was outside living my best life. I think Independently Wealthy Me would have a corgi rescue, so I could easily lose an hour or two playing with them, too.

6:00pm – Have food delivered. Probably Indian. Maybe Mexican. Nah, lets say I had Mexican for lunch, so let’s go with Indian food for dinner. Delivered to me because I am lazy like that.

6:30pm – READING TIME. I love reading. Everyone go away and be quiet so I can get lost in a book.

8:00pm – Night Check! One last look at all the ponies/dispense some cookies and pats. Also, now my day is bookended with horses, as it should always be.

8:30pm – Go to bed. Keep reading until I fall asleep surrounded by a dozen corgis.

Damn, I really need to find a way to be independently wealthy…

Way back in November I wrote a post about how I was dedicating myself to working on my mental game. I had noticed over the previous years that I really was not in a good head space when it came to how I approached showing, or even just the day to day struggles that all riders have to deal with. I was putting way to much pressure on myself, I was too negative, and I was losing focus. All of these things had a severe impact on, well… everything… but especially when it came to my performance in the ring. I was tired of letting myself be my own worst enemy, tired of being consumed by anxiety and ruled by emotion, so I decided to start trying to take steps to change it.

I started in what has always been my favorite place: books. Before I could really try to fix what was going on in my head, first I had to understand it. I loaded up on different sports psychology books, most riding-related but some not, and spent a lot of time picking them apart page by page (or with my audiobooks, sentence by sentence). Some of them I really liked, some of them were just ok. But they all highlighted one big thing: I had to learn how to be kinder to myself, how to see the big picture, and how to let go of things that I couldn’t control (well ok, there’s a lot more than that, but those were the big 3).

Whether it’s coincidence or not, I saw immediate results. Right after I opened my first books, I finally managed to put in two solid performances, finishing on our dressage score in both of our fall shows and earning two 2nd place ribbons. Awesome, right? Clouds part, angels sing, you’re done, you win, job complete, ta-da! Yeah no, not so fast. Then Texas Rose came along, and with it, some very complex feelings. The old me would have called that show a test, but now I see it for what it really was – an opportunity to see just how much I had learned so far, and just how dedicated I was to seeing this through.

That show was our first P/T, at the biggest venue we have here. I was pretty intimidated by it, but I also knew that we were capable. I made a bit of a mistake in the dressage (an error) but was able to just kind of laugh it off. Which… that itself is progress. The undercurrent of embarrassment and self-deprecation was still there of course, but I was able to pick out what went well and identify what I had learned. Then we got to stadium. It looked huge, and I was trying real hard not to shit a metaphorical brick. Warmup was kind of a shitshow, and I stepped in the ring thinking “Okay self, you can either feel cowed and defeated by all this, or you can sit up, kick on, and give it your best shot. Now is the time to choose.”. I sat up and I kicked and we got through the course just fine, albeit with 4 rails.

Gah, four rails. It’s really ugly to look at that 16 on paper, right? Plus you feel like kind of an idiot as the jump crew is scurrying around, cleaning up your mess as you walk out of the ring. But does the number on the paper actually tell the story? No it doesn’t. It was our first recognized Prelim showjumping round, on a horse I’ve had for his whole career, and here we were at a level I had never even dared aspire to. If I chose to focus on the result (“omg 4 rails, 16 penalties, great, now we’re last!”), I would have been upset. But if I chose to focus on the journey, and the opportunity that this represented (“holy shit we did a Prelim round at Texas Rose! I made mostly good decisions, and my horse tried so hard for me. Now we get to go home and work on how to smooth out the less great parts, and see if we can make some improvements.”) it was exciting instead. It was funny to me, as I sat there by Henry’s stall that afternoon and considered everything. That was the first time it really registered with me that I could actually choose how I wanted to think and feel about it. I could choose to be upset, or I could choose to be excited. There was so much power in having the ability to choose, rather than in letting my emotions control how I felt.

And then XC rolled around, and a random footing issue resulted in a 20. I remember walking back to the barn after we finished, waiting to feel that blow to the gut. Because, you know… a 20 is failure, right? Kind of embarrassing, especially on a horse that should not be getting 20’s. But I waited and waited, and that blow to the gut never really came. It’s not like I’ve learned anything new here, really… horses are horses, sport is sport, and sometimes things just go wrong. Shit happens. I’ve always known that. But before, I let the things that were outside of my control really get to me, to define who I was as a rider and even as a person. They would eat me alive, feeding on my self-worth, my confidence, and my positivity. I let myself feel so discouraged by random occurrences or one off mistakes. But this time I finally saw it for what it was: Shit. That. Happens. And again, there was a learning opportunity available to me, if I chose to take it.

I have never left a show in second-to-last place and felt satisfied with it in my entire life, until that day. And to me, that illustrates a lot more growth than either of those other two previous shows where things went really well. There’s nothing glamorous about growth, but it’s essential. I learned so much more from the show that looked ugly on paper, and I was able to grind away at those lessons, keep working, and make marked improvements. Which, shocker, eventually DID make themselves evident in consequent show results (if you’re into that “results” kind of thing).

In retrospect, I really needed to have a bit of a rough time. It made a lot of the stuff I had been reading actually click into place for me, and I was able to see things that I still needed to work on, but also the things that I’d already made so much improvement with. It proved to me that I was on the right path, and that this mental training stuff was really something I needed to pursue, for my own sake. I delved back into my reading with gusto, and started talking to more people about the subject.

Around that time Matt Brown came out with his Chronicle series, A Case for Not Focusing on Your Goals, and the subject matter was much the same as what I was dealing with. I was blown away by it, not really having seen a top professional be so candid about the subject before. He had book recommendations too, which I have been making my way through one at a time. Rough times are going to happen, no matter who you are and no matter what you do. Especially when you push further and further outside of your comfort zone, into new territory. They’ve happened before and they will happen again, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ways. There is no avoiding that. The difference is how we get through them, and I’m realizing that perspective and mental preparedness are key.

The more I’ve become aware of the mental aspect of riding, the more I’ve noticed the little things that continue to add up. The more people I’ve talked to about it, the more I’ve realized I’m not alone. In fact, almost every single person I’ve talked to has had some of these same struggles, or comes from a similar place. I feel very strongly that this isn’t something we talk about enough, as equestrians. It’s not a discussion we’re having all the time, but it should be. It’s not something we dedicate ourselves to as intensely as riding itself, but it should be. Every rider, every trainer, every owner should have this mental training as a continuous part of their education.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all this because my brain is magically “fixed” and I’m all better. Far from it. There is no such thing. I have to strap myself in, every day, and commit myself to this, every day. It will probably always be this way. For as much as I have learned, I still have 100 times more to figure out. It’s still very easy to find myself slipping into negative self talk, or comparison, or focusing on the flaws, or fearing failure. Our brains are programmed that way in this day and age, and trying to reprogram it is not easy. It’s a long hard road, and I don’t expect to ever find the end of it… I’m just hoping that it will continue to smooth itself out a bit.

I’m also hoping that by sharing my story as it unfolds, that it helps spark more conversation. I want to talk about this, honestly I need to talk about this, and I want other people to feel like it’s okay to talk about, too. Either way, get ready to see me reference this or talk a lot more about this from now on. I needed some time in the beginning to absorb it for myself and start working things out in my own head, but now I’m ready to start sharing, for better or worse. And if anyone ever wants to have a conversation, never hesitate to hit me up. If you’d rather do it privately, email me or message me any time.

If you’re looking for a couple of books, my two favorites so far have been Braining Training for Riders and Chop Wood Carry Water. That said, Trafalgar Square Books has a really good collection of sports psychology books, if you want to see what else is out there. Something else might speak to you more.