Finding Our Carrying Power

It was a truly enlightening and enjoyable weekend.  The volunteers that worked so hard to put on the 2013 edition of the Heritage Park Horse Trials out did themselves again this year.  The event ran like clockwork and I heard very few complaints.

Personally we had a lovely weekend.  Nothing we did was outstanding, but we were consistently better in all three phases.  It may not be showing up in our score or placing yet, but I can feel our hard work paying off and the discerning observer can see the subtle changes.

I never thought I’d say it, but dressage might have been the highlight of the weekend.  It wasn’t an earth shattering test and honestly after our first canter trot transition it all fell to pieces, but for the first time I had a ridable canter.  I didn’t feel like I was on an unbalanced runaway freight train.  I was riding a bendable fairly balanced horse!  It was a huge mental victory for us.

We are still a little slow across country, but we’re getting close to the pace and fitness we need.  I didn’t ride Nutmeg in as uphill of balance as I should have, but we got around safely.  Actually, apart from a hairy near stop looking into the backwards trakenher, Nutmeg galloped around like a pro.  She wasn’t super bold into the water, but it was a heck of a lot better than then skidding plop we made last year.  She pulled up with less sweat than many of the lower level horses and her breathing returned to normal quickly.

 

We put in our first double clear show jumping round.  Another big victory!  We tapped the first fence significantly when I pushed for long, but got a chip.  The rails amazingly stayed up and it served as a great wakeup call that helped us put it together for the rest of the course.  I couldn’t be more pleased with Nutmeg’s effort over the weekend.

That being said, it was a challenging weekend for me mentally.  My husband and super groom let slip that some people are expecting us to keep climbing the ladder.  I feel like we’re struggling to just safely compete at our current level.  I ticked off the numerous reasons we can’t even consider moving up - ever.  I don’t know if he voiced those concerns to others or if life just has a way of telling you what you need to hear but the next day I was handed our road map.

Right now, we are missing our carrying power.  However, we are on the road to finding it.  Like playing Sorry, we just have to keep drawing cards and moving spaces.  Sometimes we will move forward.  Sometimes we have to choose to move backward in order to put ourselves in a better position for future forward movement.  We are going to spend the winter doing transition.  Forward, back, forward, back.  Each transition will help build the muscles which will allow us to lift upward.  Upward is where we are headed one twenty to thirty minute night time ride at a time.

I really struggle with wanting to do it all, but realizing the life I’ve chosen won’t let me.   This weekend I was reminded that I can excel at what I choose to do.  So, from the weekend my Fresh Perspective is to find a finer focus.  We can accomplish more in thirty minutes of concentrated practice then in a hour of unstructured recreating.   When you don’t have much time, you have to make every second count.