Even though you can’t be a great rider without lots of practice and being in decent shape, I still claim that over 50% of the sport is mental. That being said, I had a good ‘reset’ lesson on Tuesday night to address some of the communication issues with my horse. I won’t bore you with the tiny details of the lesson, because it wasn’t that exciting, but I will share some of my take aways. I do group lessons weekly,…
When my trainer texted me Saturday afternoon asking me if I was lessening on Sunday or waiting until Tuesday, I wasn’t sure the best answer. Simon had over a week off for his stitches to heal, and I while I was planning to ride that evening I wasn’t sure how he would be. I’m really eager to train for our next show (about a month away!), and figured worst case scenario I’d have a fresh horse. No big deal. I…
Technically I should have written this post at the beginning of July, because July 2012 is when I officially became Simon’s owner. I’m a few weeks late, but I wanted to show some transformation pictures to show y’all how far we’ve come. He went from being the scraggly horse that not many people thought was worth much, to a solid citizen with a job and some small success (that I’m sure will grow!). The biggest surprise to me is that…
A lot has changed since the first time I evaluated our SWOTs and I snagged the original idea from this post from Viva Carlos. Let’s be honest – I snag most motivational tools that remind me what I need to work on from her blog, because it’s the bestest. I looked back on the first post the other day, and realized that a ton has changed since March and July… so even though spring and summer are pretty close time…
I originally saw this at Viva Carlos and just adored her post and all the others I’ve seen going around lately. I had to think about this a bit, because it isn’t exactly easy to pick the 5 most influential horses of your life. 1. The Intro Horse. We each came into horses in our own way, but it was always with a horse leading us. This might have been a friend’s first pony, or perhaps it was a draft…
In general, I’m a forward thinker. The next big thing. The next challenge. Up up. Forward. It’s rare for me not to have a goal, and I’m not always the most patient person getting to that goal. But patience is one of the most important aspects of riding. Jumping ahead is a problem I have with my equitation, and my psyche when it comes to Simon. Sometimes I want to run before we can walk, and that’s pretty detrimental to…
Before I write this little anecdote from the show last weekend, let me give you some background information so you don’t think I’m a total asshat who doesn’t know how to do anything with my horse. Simon wears gummy rubber pull on bell boots 24/7. I flip them up, take them off, etc all the time. No issue. I do this in cross ties and not tied and all variations of the sort. That being said, here is the story….
I’ve got both a horse show hangover and a post horse show high today! Yesterday had its ups and downs, but I came out of it feeling pumped and ready to work harder. I’ve also decided on a show name for Simon that will finally stick – Something So Right (a Paul Simon song). We have to keep it, because now we have CTHJA points! I’ll do a better write up tomorrow, but the overall summary is we showed in…