Spilt Milk

“I don’t like looking back.  I’m always constantly looking forward.  I’m not the one to sort of sit and cry over spilt milk.  I’m too busy looking for the next cow.”  - Gordon Ramsay

As soon as I retrieved my horse, I was already thinking about the next event.  I hadn’t even dusted off my breeches or turned off my watch.  I’m a forward thinker.  It gets me in trouble.  Sometimes, we need to slow down our brains and spend a little time in the here and now, maybe even revisit the past.

Last weekend was better than it could have been, but certainly wasn’t what I hoped it would be.  We had a tough week leading up to the Queeny Park Horse Trials.  Nutmeg has been having a horrible time with allergies this spring.  She’s been violently sneezing every few strides when we try to work.  Some days are better than others, but it has been a battle to get much done without torturing the poor girl.  Add to that her sudden desire to kick at my right leg every time I put it on and preparations just weren’t going well.  I couldn’t tell if the kicking was behavioral or a sign of some underlying issue, but when I asked for a little less, she quit doing it.  I assumed it was behavioral and we could tackle the issue after the show.  I began to wonder if the snorting was behavioral too.

When you’ve already paid your entry fee, it’s really hard to decide not to go for issues that might not be issues after a three hour trailer ride.  So we loaded up Friday and headed to Queeny.  Nutmeg really loves to go show and she seemed quite happy to be there after her four hour (wrong directions in the omnibus meant we got lost in St. Louis, again) drive.  I walked the cross country course and was excited.  It seemed to be a straight forward, friendly course with just enough questions to keep things interesting.  I was still really concerned about Nutmeg though.  I wasn’t sure if I’d even get to ride dressage.

Saturday dawned bright and early.  Nutmeg was braided.  I’d laid out everything but my riding clothes the night before.  As I started to get dressed I realized my entire garment bag with all my breeches, shirts, and other items was still hanging in the closet at home where I had loaded it up over a week ago.  Oh shoot!  There was a tack shop on grounds, but they weren’t going to be open in time for my early ride and who really wants to spend their entire show budget for the year on clothes they already have but forgot to bring?  I almost threw in the towel right then.  Clearly this was a sign or was it just a test?  I’ve always been one to forge forward, so it was time to beg, borrow and steal.

After rudely awaking a Pony Club friend of mine who was kind enough to leave her cell number on the braiding board, I discovered that my neighbor down the aisle had forgotten all her clothes at the last show and had started carrying a spare set.  The whole outfit fit!  Hoorah!  Off to dressage land we went.

Nutmeg snorted a bit during warm-up, but they were normal snorts.  She also threw her hind end at me a couple of times, but not badly and otherwise she felt great so we rode our test.  It had some poor moments, like going up centerline more on the quarter line and counter bent, but it also had some decent moments.  She still looks like she’s running around on her forehand, but she is so much softer now.  I did ride her a little long for fear of the snorting and kicking.  We can collect more later.  I rounded all my corners in hopes of staying upright in the slippy grass (yes I had my studs in, but there were still a few slick spots).  The judge was generous and we managed to maintain our below 40 streak, which made me quite happy.

I finally let myself get hopeful for cross country, even though I knew there was a possibility that as the sun came out, the allergies might flair back up.  We made the very long hack out the cross country, entertained by Muslims chanting in the background.  Apparently they were having some sort of gathering nearby.  Warm-up went well for 98% of the time.  The other 2% she spent rodeoing.  It was some serious bucking, but then she’d canter and jump just fine.  I asked a trainer if she could see anything wrong and with reassurance from the ground, headed to the start box.

Apparently I filled up the memory card for my helmet cam at the last event.  When I tested it at the barn it was fine, but when I turned it on at the start box it made unhappy beeps at me.  I shrugged it off, told Nutmeg she needed to make it very clear to me if we needed to pull up, hit start on my watch and off we went.

We took one a little long as usual.  Fence two rode okay.  Three was a little funky, but that’s normal for us.  It usually takes to fence four to really get in a groove.  We had a brief discussion about breaks between three and four and then we locked on to the trekhener.  Trekherners are disconcerting for me, but we’d had such a good school over one this spring, I was feeling confident.  I knew if I just kept my eye up and my leg on we’d be fine.  Well, not so much…

Yes, I threw my shoulders and as a product of that I also looked down, although I still hold that I was looking up until Nutmeg engaged the “E” break.  She’s pulled us out of many similar sticky situations, but this time I truly believe her back hurt enough that stopping was easier.  I’m glad she did.  If we had just had a bad jump, I probably would have kept pushing her forward around the course.  That would have been the wrong decision.  I asked her to tell me if we needed to pull up, and that was the most effective way she had to get the message across.  Sometimes it takes a two-by-four.

That’s all the looking back I’m willing to do.  Life isn’t about what happened yesterday.  It’s about how you react to it and how you live today.  I’m a planner and a dreamer.  I don’t think about the fence I’m jumping now, I’m already thinking about the next.  Sometimes it trips me up or gets me launched over my horse’s shoulder, but it keeps me optimistic and it gives me something to look forward too, when the present kind of sucks.  I could have spent the very long walk home crying over spilt milk.  I’ll admit I did a little crying, but it was disappointment in my decision making and facing the reality that I could have hurt such a lovely horse.  There are lessons to be learned from this, but if I get mired down in it, we’ll never jump another jump.  Fear of past mistakes is no way to live.

I’m struggling with future decisions.  Do I enter the next event at Training or do I drop back down to Novice for an easy go around and a confidence boost?  I don’t feel our confidence has been harmed.  If anything, I feel less apprehensive about trekheners now that the boogey man managed to get me once.  I’ve seen him and now I can beat him, but will my horse have the same opinion?  I’ve never come off her before.  Did that experience shake her confidence?  Time will tell.  For now, I’m focused forward.  

Life Really Is a Fairy Tale

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.” – Marcel Proust

I’d like to tell you a story.  It’s a magical story, and like most magical stories, it begins a very long, long time ago…

 

There was a young Princess.  She had a wonderful family and a delightful Kingdom and wanted for nothing, but she dreamed of riding her very own Unicorn.

Her parents wanted to help her, but they knew that Unicorns couldn’t be found let alone ridden, so they got her a pony.  He was the perfect round little pony.  He had just enough ornery to teach her many life lessons, but he was also a dutiful servant who was very protective of his young master.  She loved her pony and they spent many years together, but he wasn’t a Unicorn and one day it was decided he should move to a new Kingdom and help a new Princess learn about life.

The Princess was sad, but her wise parents quickly found her a cart horse, a very pretty cart horse.  This cart horse had been around enough to know the ropes and take the young Princess on many adventures.  The King and Queen saw all the Princess was learning and decided she could use some guidance so they found a Wise Wizard.  The young Princess and her cart horse spent many hours under the tutelage of the Wise Wizard and they learned much.  The Princess and the cart horse surprised many people and achieved great things.  They grew very close and the young Princess began to dream of becoming a centaur instead of riding a unicorn.   Then the cart horse died and the young Princess was very, very sad.

The good Queen and King couldn’t bear to see the young Princess so sad, so with the help of the Wise Wizard they found Pegasus for the Princess.    She was so proud of Pegasus.  They flew all over, all the while the Wise Wizard was coaching them and helping them plan and learn.  The good King and Queen made sure the Princess and Pegasus had all the opportunities they needed and life was wonderful for the Princess, but she still wasn’t riding a Unicorn.

 The time came for the young Princess to take Pegasus out into the greater world, leaving the protection of the Kingdom and the wisdom of the Wise Wizard behind.  For a while, she and Pegasus continued forward, but then Pegasus got sick and the Princess discover that she had to start her journey toward riding a Unicorn from scratch.

It was very hard without the wisdom of the Wise Wizard and without the protection of the Kingdom, but she struggled on.  She found a great Knight to help her, but he secretly didn’t believe in Unicorns, he just wanted to make her happy and he did.  For a while he even managed to distract her from her dream, but then she found the Warhorse.

The Warhorse wasn’t a unicorn.  Everyone knows unicorns are white.  But the Warhorse did have a roman nose and bulgy forehead.  The Princess dreamed that someday the bumpy nose would morph into a magical horn.  The Warhorse didn’t have wings like Pegasus, but she was big and could step over most obstacles.  The Princess dreamed maybe one day she’d learn to fly even without wings.  So the Princess spent hours and hours and days and days with the Warhorse.  She often heard the Wise Wizard’s words in her head, quietly reminding her to, “do it this way,” but the way she’d always done it didn’t always work on the Warhorse.  Outside the Kingdom and away from the Wizard she had to start thinking of fixes on her own.  It was up to the Princess to recognize and solve the problems.  She couldn’t just ride, she had to think.  It was very hard and many times she wanted to give up, but she believed in the big knobby Warhorse, so she kept going.

Then her Knight found her a magical mirror.  It showed her the past whenever she wanted to see it.  She realized just how wonderful it had been when she lived in the Kingdom and how wise the Wizard had been.  But then she saw that she was just a shadow in the mirror.  She was translucent, as if she wasn’t quite whole.  As the years spun by her form in the mirror grew more color, but it was swirly and unstable.  The Wizard tried to put the color where it belonged, but as soon as the Wizard turned away, the color moved and oozed around.  The Princess looked down at her hands holding the mirror.  They looked normal, so what had changed?

 

Every little Princess needs to learn to color themselves.  Kings and Queens can protect them while the pigments are added.  Wise teachers can show them where the pieces fit and what colors go where, but ultimately, each young Prince and Princess has to build themselves.  It doesn’t happen on its own.  While the young Princess struggled to turn her Warhorse into a Unicorn she learned about herself.  She took each little piece she’d been given, digested it and turned it into a piece of her.  All the while she was figuring out which pieces went where and what color things should be, she was teaching her Warhorse, giving her Warhorse an idea of what it could be, just as her parents and the Wise Wizard had done for her.

One morning the not-so-young-anymore Princess went out to her Warhorse.  The Warhorse was standing in the grass gazing at a field of jumps.  Before her eyes, the Princess watched the Warhorse start to shimmer then slowly sprout wings and grow a beautiful horn.  The Warhorse turned to the Princess and for the first time, they were both complete.  Then the Princess hopped up onto the Warhorse and they galloped away into the land of dreams fulfilled.

We aren’t entitled to fulfill our dreams, but we can earn them.   Even with parents who want the world for us, even with the best education, the best role models, and the most privileged upbringing, we must do the work ourselves, otherwise it’s just empty.  

Life is easy.  It happens naturally.  We don’t even have to think about our heart beating, but living, pursing a dream, that takes effort.  Whether you choose to go around the mountain, go over it, dig through it, or train a Unicorn to fly you there, effort is a required input and you are the only one who can get you there.  Life really is a Fairy Tale, but even Fairy Tales require lifting a broom or completing a quest.

Happy, Happy, Happy

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln

It’s all about perception, but having really awesome people, a really awesome horse and fantastic weather sure does help.

We’re back and recovered from the first event of the season and boy did it set the standard.  I always love going to Longview Horse Park.  I spent many hours there as a child volunteering, getting ticks, even playing in the water jump.  I have lots of fond memories and a few nightmares from a few problematic jumps.  The Longview Horse Park and I have history and for better or worse, I smile every time I round the corner and see the entry way.

This year I was grinning ear to ear.  It was obvious from the moment I pulled off the interstate that they were excited to have us.  There were signs pointing the way all over the park.  When I pulled in, I was greeted, showed where to park, told where I could ride and informed that the ticks were extra prevalent this year.  (Yes, I’ve been plucking them off the horses twice daily, thanks for the tip).  The icing on the cake though, each of the Port-A-Pots had been stalked with sunscreen, hand sanitizer and bug spray.  Such hospitality!

Oh yeah, that's a Port-a-Pot Pic

I usually don’t ride on Friday evening on account of having plenty of other items to attend to, but word around the barn was if I hurried, I could get a ride in with Coach before she turned into a pumpkin.  So after picking up my number and my year’s supply of fly spray (another reason I love coming to Longview – excellent goodies), Nutmeg and I headed down to the dressage warm-up to stretch our legs.

We’ve been working so hard on being soft and supple from our nose to our tail.  We managed to achieve those goals out on the grass, but when we moved from the grass into the sand and started cantering, we lost our supple and replaced it with rather stiff bucking springs.  I guess it’s a good thing we tackled that Friday instead of early, early Saturday morning.

I walked the cross country course.  It seemed straight forward with two major exceptions.  The two related distances were set on a very non-standard stride.  I hoped my striding was just off and marked them on the list to inquire about.

At this point, I have to admit I’m really enjoying my new work schedule.  Getting home at 3:30 has given me the opportunity to do things like clean tack and pack my trailer ahead of time.  It was really strange to be ahead of the game on Friday evening.  So relaxing!

All ready and the sun hasn't even set yet!

We did our official course walk and it turns out I wasn’t crazy.  The distances were, well, different.  From the roll-top to the ditch was a very, very (for Nutmeg very, very, very) bouncy four strides.  The up bank to the roll-top was a perfect one and a half strides.  Ick.  Plan of attack?  We’re going to be killing time anyway, let’s trot into the questions.  Hopefully problem solved.  I went to bed happy.

I spent a long time on our Dressage warm-up.  We did lots of straightening and suppeling exercises and I felt pretty happy with how things felt.  Then we trotted into the ring with our head and tail up.  So we started over as we took our lap around the ring.  That’s not much time to put things back together, but it happened quicker than it would have in the past.  We were still resistant as we headed down centerline, but we made progress throughout the test.  I felt like we were better balanced on the whole and we made progress.  Our score didn’t really reflect that, but we did break 40 for the first time, so I’ll take that as a sign that we are headed in the right direction, just a little more slowly than I would like.

Our cross country warm-up was nothing short of perfect.  I was riding a soft happy horse that was even adjustable to the base of the jumps.  I headed to the start box glowing.  We lost a bit of our ridability around the course.  Nutmeg was really not thrilled with the slow canter plan.  I guess she is getting used to the faster speeds at Training finally.  The trot in plan was a little confusing for her, but she listened and we got the job done.  It wasn’t pretty to the ditch, but the bank and roll top actually rode quite well.  She is so relaxing to ride cross country.  It really is a pleasurable stroll around the park.  Unfortunately we strolled a little too quickly and I had to make a circle to kill a little time and we still came in about 20 seconds under optimum.  Regardless, I was pleased with our trip around and pleased with the level of fitness she seems to have maintained.  That was my main concern coming out of a hard winter.  We still need to build some fitness before we can make time at Training, but she recovered better than I expected after cross country.

With the pony pampered and tucked away, I was able to sneak away and have an “almost Mother’s Day” meal with my parents.  Meanwhile a tornado formed over my work place.  Thank fully it was little and no one was hurt.  I picked a good weekend to be out of town!

Sunday’s stadium course seemed to ride very well.  Nutmeg had just the right amount of energy.  We had a fine warm-up, but lost our concentration a bit when we went in the ring.  Like Dressage, I was able to get her back together much more quickly, so I’m pleased.  I didn’t ride the course well.  I let Nutmeg get long and flat a few times and that cost us our typical two rails.  Eventually I will learn that lesson.

Our chances of being in the ribbons were miniscule, but ever the optimist, I stood around and watched the rest of our division go.  No real problems other than one poor lost soul.  I decided we had waited long enough and walked Nutmeg back to the barn.  Not a second after I had started untacking they announced the ribbons and we got one.  My barn buddies valiantly vaulted me back into the saddle so we could go join the victory gallop, but alas, we weren’t quite fast enough.  Oh well, we still got a pretty ribbon to add to the collection.

It was a marvelous weekend.  It could have been miserable.  We could have complained about the ticks, pouted about the dressage score, worried about the cross country, and gotten frustrated over the rails, but that wouldn’t help anything.  When I go to a horse show, I’m there to enjoy the weekend, my friends and my horse.  Once you make up your mind, don’t let something trivial unmake it.  If you struggle with unhappy horse shows, try this Fresh Perspective: Be Happy.  It really is your choice.

I will call her Squishy

“And she will be mine and she will be my Squishy Squishy…”

Severe Thunderstorms were blowing across the Missouri/Kansas border, but Nutmeg and I had a scheduled dressage lesson and by golly, we were going to get our monies worth.

We’ve made some really big break throughs over the winter considering how little we were actually able to ride.  Nutmeg has gone from a stiff board, pulling herself and me with her around the arena with very little influence accepted from me, to a much more manageable animal.  We started with getting her jaw unlocked and explaining that you can rotate your head on the end of your neck.  Next we got our half halts working a bit better and focused on allowing her back to come up in downward transitions.  Then it was time to unlock the shoulders and make them a bit more mobile.  I suddenly had a much more rideable horse and it was awesome.  Then Spring hit.

I don’t know what it is about spring, but it was like the last three months of breaks throughs were blown away on the very healthy continuous breeze.  We needed a lesson, if only to help me regain my sanity.  So of course, the sane thing to do was to haul an hour and take a lesson during a thunderstorm with straight line winds and small hail.

I’ll profess that I didn’t hear a lot of that lesson, but sometimes it isn’t about hearing the instructor.  After every lesson, we take the instruction and put it into practice; I just had to do it a bit quicker than normal.  It was nice to be able to puzzle through things with the confidence that if I really started messing up someone was watching and would stop me.  It made for a very different atmosphere.

I’m happy to report that even with all the distractions Mother Nature was creating, we were able to add yet another building block.  It’s funny.  I’ve been familiar with the dressage training for years and years, but now I feel like I am actually learning how to create each step on the scale.  Each lesson lays another brick by dealing with a different hole in our pyramid.

In this particular lesson, we spent the first twenty minutes or so suppling Nutmeg behind the loins.  We worked in leg yield head to the wall, then transitioned that to haunches-in.  I’m still struggling mentally with the concept of diagonal aids, but as always, I think it’s because I’m trying to over-do and over-think.  When mom’s confused, Nutmeg’s really at a loss, but it’s coming.  We actually had several good steps.  It’s just going to take some time.

Then we trotted.  Every single second we spent crawling around the arena step-by-step was worth it when we picked up the trot.  In a word, it was “squishy.”  Malleable, has never been a word I would use to describe Nutmeg but suddenly I was riding a pile of Jell-O.  Just the right amount of surface tension to create bouncy, but completely pliable in every direction.  I think my grin probably created stretch lines on the back of my scalp.

The bar has been raised yet again and I have a step-by-step plan on how to reach it.  This is such an exciting adventure.  Nutmeg is now my squishy and has earned herself a new nick-name, the FlufferNutter.  I may be making shirts.  I know it’s silly, but sometimes that’s okay.  So this Fresh Perspective comes from the FlufferNutter, “Sometimes you have to ride through the Thunder in order to float in the clouds.”