One of the first things asst trainer Tim Bourke told me upon arriving to work at LFF was that he truly believed "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger... and this job just might kill you." I didn't exactly know what he meant by that, but I certainly have some experiences to draw my own conclusions from.
I always feel (maybe this is a DUH moment, but hey, aren't those always the ones you learn most from?) that after any type of test (be it a show, a clinic, a lesson, etc) where you're kind of put on the spot to show what you've learned and are capable of, hindsight becomes THEN AND THERE 20/20. For example, after my annoying screw ups on xc at GHF a few weeks ago, I realized how little I had been riding the course. The course was twisty, it was tight, and it was technical, and I had not been riding my horse appropriately for the course in front of me. Well, of course after I finished, I could have just about locked myself in a room and melted into self loathing afterwards, especially since Oops had been so willing and capable. Instead, I tried sending that frustration into a good ride for stadium the next day, where we had one of our best (and one of the only for our division) double clear rides for the day. I was thrilled!
Today, I took Oops to a schooling show in attempts to prep for Fitch's next weekend, which is looking less and less probable as the week drags on (stupid electronic entries). We had an ok warm up for dressage, I forgot where to do the stretchy circle, and scored not so well. Not our best, but I know what I need to continue to do with him, dressage is always a work in progress for us. The xc course was tight with no good galloping stretches, which meant I needed to be able to keep him relatively composed the whole ride. He was fine; we had some awkward close distances to more fences than I would have liked, but he was pretty attentive and didn't look at the ditch, which is always a bonus. We then went straight to stadium, which was a small course for Training, and even though I could see some people getting rough jumps, didn't think too much of it. Oops has been jumping fantastically lately, really really adjustable and great with some accuracy questions that we don't school very often. Unfortunately for Oops and fortunately for me, he saved our ass quite a few times, but I gave him a horrible ride. Ashley told me when we got out of the ring- "I'm not saying this to be mean, but all of the issues you had in there were your fault," and she was completely correct. I knew it immediately, and have no been able to shake this disgusted feeling I've had since this morning. Especially when my horse has really been trying lately, really been performing maybe better than he has ever, and I can't even ride him properly to let him show everyone what he can do. Ashley told me I needed to stop riding the horse he use to be, and ride the horse I've got now, and I think this is quite a valuable lesson for myself. I notice more and more often now how I expect him to misbehave like he did when he was 8 or 10. He's 14 now and we've both matured a lot in the last few years. Trust is such a huge part of horsemanship, and I hate to think I'm pissing mine away because I don't believe he's going to be as good as he's been.
So that's what this rant is all about. Me being upset with myself. Instead of wallowing in self pity, I'm going to use this pent up frustration to put more work into my rides that I can get out of him. I'm going to ask a little more each time we jump, and not settle for acceptable or just good enough. I'm going to do more hills and be more creative with our time out of the rings, to desensitize him as much as possible and to give his brain a break. I'm going to start running again when I'm not at the barn, because I should not be nearly as out of breath as I am from riding one horse in a horse trials. I'm going to keep better track of what we do and how much he's improving over specific time spans. I'm also going to get a better start on planning our events (and entering them), as well as figuring out what my finances need to look like in order to go down south for a couple weeks this year. Oh, and how I'm going to make enough money to pay back loans after I graduate while also being a working student.
So while today didn't necessarily kill me, it was close to it. There's nothing worse than knowing you didn't give it your all, and your horse being the one who really suffered from it. Tomorrow, I revamp my training approach. No point in wasting energy dwelling on the past when it can be put into constructive outlets to better your future!
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