Winter Tournament 2015/2016 #3 Hosted by Winsalot Stables Arab City Park Saturday, February 27, 2016
Riding Results 4/10. 4/9. 5/6. Pastel ribbons in large (for us) classes. Not unpleased. Sam did not like the mud, ring, phase of the moon.
Riding Lessons After you use an aid, put it away. Comment from ringside: Ease up on your reins. Me: Oh, hell no. CfR: It takes two to pull. Me: He started it. CfR: Bump and let go. (Also know as squeeze and release in the dressage world.)
Pleasure does not equal pleasant. During the break between my second and third classes, Greg rubbed on Sam’s neck. Sam gradually got over himself. We had a nice pleasant class. However, a saddle seat pleasure class does not mean fun to ride. Saddle Seat Pleasure is Fun! To! Ride! I need to rock on down the road rather than ease on down the road.
Driving Results Instead of a standard driving class with two carts circling the ring, we staged an impromptu Combined Driving demo. We brought the cones, balls & measuring stick; set up the figure-eight course we had practiced; then took turns driving. Alvin was a star.
Ended [Show Report MSSP 2016, No More Magic Bullets]Greg won. We left it up to the judge to decide based on faults or on style. Greg had fewer faults and better lines. I remembered to put my hands up and look pretty, occasionally.
Driving Lesson Same cones + same course + new ring = totally different feel. ~~~ Thank you to Julie Wamble & Courtney Huguley for their wonderful horses.
~~~ Update. Show may have been casualty of caffeine experiment. [Show Report MSSP 2016, No More Magic Bullets, Archives]
ASHAA Horsemanship Challenge
Heathermoor Farm
Leeds, AL
February 28, 2016
SHORT VERSION
Did what I set out to do [Motivation]. Rode two horses. Established a baseline for next year.
Lining up after the second round.
LONG VERSION First Round: Annie
I managed to throughly annoy a very nice beginner horse. Annie has a thing about whips. One does not carry a whip on Annie. Instead I was given advice on how to keep her going. Well. Years of jumping position has given me a lower leg that Saddlebreds do not usually experience. By the second canter, she was saying, ‘Okay, okay, STOP YELLING!’ I thought she may have given a little back end hop as punctuation. My ground crew says she didn’t, but was definitely heading in that direction. We have it on good authority that Annie does not buck.
Second Round: Elvis-The-Other
When I drew for my second ride, the card said Elvis. I was supposed to ride a cute little Morgan from barn X. Instead, I located a different horse of the same name from barn Y. Other Elvis was milling and kicking and aggravating the child tasked with holding him. He didn’t look neurotic as much as annoyed.
Getting 40 or so riders on strange horses for two (or three) rounds meant 100+ instances of Where is So-and-So? I got the wrong horse mainly because I was confused. However, part of me rolled with the change. Cute Elvis would not have been as much a test of my ability to ride a new horse.
Other Elvis and I never achieved sympatico. I could never figure out what he wanted me to do with my hands: hold? give? top rein? bottom rein? both? neither? For a few steps, I’m fairly sure I was cantering in two-point.
Results
I did not make the final round. Perhaps if I had ridden the pleasant pony, I might have. OTOH, only 12 out of 27 WTC riders made the third round. Most of those 12 were names I recognized as suit riders. I ended up in a 5-way tie in the high teens.
LESSONS My saddle seat riding comes in three levels. Surviving. Getting the horse from point A to point B. Achieving three gaits and arriving at the line-up. This I can generally do. It may not always look pretty. The more trouble I have, the less pretty it looks. Other Elvis and I spent a lot of time here.
Sustaining. Maintaining an effective position on an agreeable horse. This is the level expected at Academy.
Succeeding. Influencing the horse. Asking for more. More speed. More containment. More verve. I was able to ask Annie for one or two zippy trot passes. She didn’t necessarily give them, but at least I asked. Collecting the horse into the slow, little teacup canter is easier for me than containing the trot. The ideal show trot has form and speed.
It doesn’t matter what you do. What matters is how the judge interprets what you do.
After the show, the judge was kind enough to critique my rides. In the first round, she liked how I took risks and put Annie out there. Nod from me. Then she evaluated my plan with Elvis. Trouble was, I never had a plan with Elvis. She said that after a bobble, I faded to the rail and hid from her. I needed to get back out and recapture her attention. Huh? Hiding? I was happy to be at the correct gait in the correct direction. Where we were in the ring was an accident of geography. She was crediting me with far more intentionality than I possessed.
I wasn’t wrong.
Someday, maybe, I will trust myself. I had a reason to be extra nervous, given my internal wiring.
I don’t like riding new horses. Never have. But part of Sunday’s meltdown (yes, there was a meltdown, albeit a small one) was apprehension about riding a new Saddlebred. I do not – yet – truly understand what makes a Saddlebred go. Without this, I feel lost, which undermines my confidence.
When comfortable with a horse, I can put my hands up and look the part. If the planets are in alignment and the horse is feeling generous, I can get a few suit-quality steps of engagement from the hind end. When the wheels come off, all of that goes out the window. I am not solid enough in my convictions to enforce proper Saddlebred-style behavior.
I need to ride from a position of solid understanding and strength. I need to be over-prepared. If I’m jumping X height in a show, I warm up at that height, or a hole higher. I need to feel that I know, deep down, what is going on. If I have that, I can be bulletproof.
Something to work on.
~~~
Thank you to Rocking S Farm, Heathermoor Farm, and Harris Riding Academy for providing horses: the ones I rode and the one I didn’t.
~~~
Photo notes: Smile from OpenClipArt. I didn’t have the identity of the other rider, and therefore could not ask for her (or perhaps her parents) permission to use. Paranoid? Moi? Photo by Greg. Included as a service to the reader [Lights, Camera, Canter]. All I can see are my potbelly & rounded shoulders. Ick.
~~~ Update. Show may have been casualty of caffeine experiment. [Show Report MSSP 2016, No More Magic Bullets, Archives]
Think bold thoughts for me today. I have signed up for the Horsemanship Challenge. Gulp. I will be asked to ride two unknown Saddlebreds, three if I make the finals. I did this for Walk-Trot in 2013 [Regular Programming]. I have vehemently avoided the WTC version over the past two years.
Why now? Well, I blame my coach. She talked me into it. Without saying a word.
In talking over my goals for this year, I said I wanted to get braver about getting on new horses. I’ll never be brave about it, but I could get bravER. Then, the show schedule comes out. Hmm, Horsemanship Challenge is coming up soon. That would be a good goal. For next year. For 2017. Something to work towards.
I knew, KNEW, that as soon as I mention HSC 2017, Coach Courtney would say, “Why not do it this year?” It was the driving talk all over again.
(My thoughts, during boot camp for Nationals 2014) Maybe I should try driving again. Maybe in the future even try a show or two. A small show. Alone in the ring. As a schooling exercise only. In the future. For now, we will concentrate on ridden equitation. After Nationals, we can revisit the driving question.
I had just launched into this speech when she-who-talks-me-into-all-manner-of-sh*t says, Why don’t you drive at Nationals?
Nationals 2014, Alvin Ailey. Sandra Hall Photography Used with permission
My coach now officially lives in my head.
~~~
Please feel free to download, share, post, reuse the GO!ME! image for moments of personal motivation. If you would prefer to use it for profitable purposes, let’s talk.
I will not be tweeting. This is my 10th Winter Tournament show. I am still excited to show. (Always!) I am less enthused about a tweet stream that I could write in advance:
The superstitious part of me points out that the above is a best-case scenario. Things could go drastically wrong at any point. True. But then I wouldn’t be tweeting. My argument stands.
I had my last sport psychology appointment earlier this week. The set of three appointments was an introductory package deal. I enjoyed it, but will not continue.
Hello & Goodbye
The woman tasked with taking over from Dr. Margaret [Goodbye] has been Meighan Julbert, MS, Mental Skills Consultant. [MindSide.com > Team] As always, the following is my interpretation of what was said, which may or may not have any relation to what was intended.
Thank you, Ms. Julbert.
Why It Worked For Me
Last November I was a mess [Whither Now?]. I had to do something. This was something.
Bodies have predictable physiologic responses to stress. There are standard techniques to deal with these responses. Meighan (Ms. Julbert may be more polite, but seems way too formal.) helped me work up a pre-ride ritual. Of course, books discuss these techniques. I have Inside Your Ride by Tonya Johnston in hardback and on Kindle. Have I read it? Of course not. Having a person expecting a daily report by email forced me to get to work.
It can hold up a mirror to your strengths and weaknesses. Having been on the receiving end of those daily emails, Meighan was able to summarize the attitudes behind what I said. Some of the advice was on target, some not. We may have uncovered the motivation behind my show nerves. More on this once I expose the ideas to a lesson/show situation.
Why It Didn’t Work For Me
This wasn’t a fair test. My attitude has changed substantially since I’ve come around on Milton [2.0]. Oh, I still stew and fuss and kick myself, but the despair is gone.
No one can give you the answer. I don’t mean change has to come from inside. I mean change is not possible. If you are like me, the things you want to “fix” are also the things that make you who you are. I would love to be the person who says. ‘If that horse stops rearing long enough, I’ll leap on and head over to those enormous jumps.’ Ain’t gonna happen. I need to accept who I am and learn to work within my limitations design parameters. This is not a contradiction of #3 above. They can help you. They can’t fix you.
My main objection is the expense. If a session were the cost of a riding lesson, I might stay with it. As is, I can ride for a month for the cost of one hour. I will return to that staple of the adult amateur, the trainer/therapist*.
~~~
*AFAIK, the term “trainer/therapist” was coined in The Chronicles of the $700 Pony, by Ellen Broadhurst (Half Halt 2006):
“So my therapist called me today. Well, technically, she’s my trainer, but for the sake of argument, let’s just call her my therapist.”
