Remember that bewildering brain fart when I thought I’d go from zero to hero in five weeks? That I’d get back to my fearless teenage equestrian skills in less time than it takes to grow a tomato?
Oh mate, I can assure you that was never, ever going to happen.
The horse was a barely broken 4 year old with serious sensory issues, while I was a nervous rider with a significant misalignment between my actual skills and the ones that I thought I should have.
And one of the biggest problems was that that my fear was quite literally paralyzing.
On the rare occasion I was brave enough to get on, I’d adopt the fetal position and walk around, crouched forward with my fanny face down on the pommel.
Like such 👇
Usually I’d just go round in a few circles and quickly get off to ‘end on a good note’… but actually I was just too shit scared to do anything else.
For she who used to gallop racehorses, conquer cross country courses and play competitive polocrosse…was now at capacity walking in a circle.
If I was ever brave enough to trot, there was exactly zero purpose – I would just heave around for about 5 ‘up-downs’ in any direction and then collapse in a heap.
And for the months that followed, there was really no progress, no milestones and certainly no attempt to improve my skills.
Instead, I did a lot of walking in circles and tried to feel important…
Yet still, those victory montages played in my head… and I thought I’d be pinning rosettes & ribbons in no time.
And oddly, at my first riding club rally, I hadn’t even considered how disastrous it could be…Which is unusual for me, because I generally like to run through a full suite of ‘worst case’ scenarios before I commit to anything.
But as I unloaded him at the Club grounds, the universe kindly delivered me a ‘kite horse’ and reminded me that I was in way, waaaay over my head…
Shady was snorty, with wide eyes and promptly started towing me around in terror.
I had no steering, no brakes and aside from giving him an almighty yoink on the face – I had no way of collecting his attention.
The poor fella was clearly overwhelmed by the atmosphere and he looked like he was legitimately about to explode out of his own skin – like a gross, meaty, horse popcorn.
And at this point, I’d like to take a moment to explain the atmosphere, so you can see what kind of disaster we were dealing with.
It was an open grassy field with a row of yards under welcoming, windless trees and were about 5 other horses there blissfully munching on hay.
There were no dogs…
No heavy machinery…
No bunting, no flags, no loud speaker, no market stalls, no screaming kids, no loose horses, no hustle and bustle of a hundred horses getting ready for an event.
It was a calm, inviting environment with a few, sleepy friends for good measure.
Anyway, as was my way back then – I employed exactly zero problem solving skills. I didn’t walk him around, I didn’t lunge him, I didn’t do any groundwork exercises to help him calm down…
I just ploughed onwards.
And at some point I started to feel annoyed. I felt indignant that this bloody horse had dared ruin the moment and was causing me embarrassment.
“What an arsehole!” I muttered to myself as I slid him into a yard and proceeded to throw the saddle on as he danced with anxiety and barged at the fence.
“You better bloody behave” I growled at him as we walked towards our first group lesson.
And I’d like to follow with words to the effect of “The lesson was a disaster” but I feel like the word disaster implies something unexpected.
But really, the only person in God’s good universe who was surprised by the badness of this lesson was yours truly.
She with the egotistical imaginings. The one with no grasp on the enormity of the abyss between where she wanted to be and the actual skills she had.
By way of a quick wrap up though, the lesson consisted of everyone else having to do a lot of standing still, while I was led around by the instructor.
Led. Around.
In a walk.
And to make it worse, after driving home with my face prickling with anger and embarrassment, I did absolutely nothing to devise some practical steps for improvement.
I let the shame shit-show play for a few hours then did what I often did in times of duress, which was to console myself with wine and online shopping.
I decided that the best way forward was to invest not in training or meditation but in some pretty horse boots and a matching saddle pad.
Because even though I had no control of my horse, it turns out I could control the colour of the things he wore.
And that, it seemed was exactly what my ego needed to keep playing those damn movies in my head.
Yep – even as a fully formed adult human – I dared not examine my own expectations or look closely at my skill set.
Oh no…
In fact, only ‘set’ I was prepared to think about was colour-coordinated dress ups for my horse.
Which was probably how I ended up at my next group lesson. Only this one was much much, much worse…
See up until then I’d kept it under wraps that I was the esteemed owner of an emerging equestrian apparel brand.
From the public facing business perspective, I never outed myself as the human behind it. Aside from the occasional photo of a posed office workspace, complete with colour swatches and a steaming cup of coffee – I never gave any insight into who I actually was…
Instead, I’d just send shirts off long-legged equestriennes with shiny warmbloods and just post their photos instead 🤷♀️
So from the public’s point of view, there was not a single indication that the brand was being steered by a terrified, tippy forward rider with her fanny face down on the pommel.
I guess that wasn’t too much of a problem… except that I also used to post riding tips and motivational content to inspire riders to get out there and ‘ride their best life’
And as such, it was something I really should have considered before I accepted the invitation to my second group lesson.
One of the ‘Sponsored Riders’ I’d secured for Sweet Iron Co ended up only living about 2 hours away and had invited me to join her Riding Club for a rally.
She prefaced it by saying that it was a ‘new thing’ called Working Equitation and she was quite sure they were all going to be hopeless.
So choosing to interpret her version of ‘hopeless’ accordingly, and with a burning desire to take my new pink matchy set for a spin, I set off for Bendigo…
Now you’d think I’d be thrilled to see so many people wearing Sweet Iron shirts when I arrived.
But I was not.
I knew my cover was blown 😩
During the lesson, my comrades were confidently cantering around, leaping obstacles and using jousting sticks to pierce hoops on fake bulls.
Meanwhile I trotted halfway around a plastic thing on the ground (about 7 ‘up downs’ to be precise) to a resounding cheer from my new friends.
Only I knew it was one of those weirdly, over-enthusiastic sympathy cheers… the kind reserved for the ‘different’ kid that your parents make you be friends with in primary school.
And whether it was that cheer in particular, I’m not sure…but for some reason, that day in Bendigo was the day the penny dropped.
I finally recognised the enormity of the distance between where I was and where I thought I should be… and realised that perhaps I needed to do something about it 🤔