“Tell me about your horse and what you’d like to get out of this lesson?”
It’s a pretty standard way for a new coach to start a lesson and this was no different.
We were halfway through the pandemic and in a brief window between lockdowns, where I’d committed to attend every equestrian outing I possibly could.
Even in my state of fetal position fear, I knew that having a young horse that was also ‘locked down’ and not seeing the world was going to add even more problems to my plate.
I took a deep breath….
“So um…I used to ride as a kid and thought I was pretty damn good”
“Then when I started back riding after a 20 year break, I bought this young, green, entirely unsuitable horse. It was a poor choice” I said, because apparently I was OK with owning my shitty decisions these days 🤷♀️
“Ok. Well you’re not the first person to do that. Where are you both up to right now?” She asked, kinda gruffly.
“Err…we can walk and trot but I can’t canter because he bucks” I answered, feeling only marginally more capable than someone you might see trail riding wearing shorts, thongs and a bicycle helmet.
I was standing in her arena that morning because a few days earlier I’d seen a ‘poles clinic’ advertised about 30 minutes from my house and I’d booked in immediately.
I’d never heard of the coach before but I didn’t care because I loved the idea of prancing around over little logs for an hour.
So ‘Poles’ involve riding over intricate patterns of long wooden poles…. And they’ve become popular lately because of the gymnastic and biomechanical benefits to the horse.
However I liked the idea of doing poles because I figured I was better off being hopeless while ‘doing something’ rather than being hopeless going round and round in a circle 🤷♀️
Also, in the past I’d managed to swerve Shady’s farty buck parties if he had something to do with this feet.
It seemed that when he had to concentrate on his own foot placement he didn’t have enough spare brain space to worry about snapping twigs or sinister looking mailboxes.
“Ok then, we’ll have a quick warm up and get on with it” she said
And after a few ugly up-down trot circles the coach said
“AAAAAAND….In the next corner, ask for canter”
What?! I turned to her, incredulous….
“Didn’t you hear what I said earlier? HE BUCKS!” I shrieked, surprising myself at just how squeaky and panicked my voice came out.
“Yeah.. so? Just give it a go” she shrugged.
And clearly I was so shocked at how few shits she gave about my drama, that in the next corner I did exactly what she asked.
And whaddya know?
With nothing more than the tiniest flick of his fetlocks, Shades picked up canter and went all the way around the arena.
And for the next 40 minutes, for the first time in years – I rode my horse like a NORMAL horse and I loved every single second.
Naturally, on the drive home I gripped the steering wheel and cried happy tears while I tried to work out what had just happened.
And this is what I deduced….
During my time in The Cult, if a horse demonstrated even the tiniest flicker of resistance – it was seen as an enormous issue to unpack.
It was the equine equivalent of analysis paralysis, down to a tee.
And as both myself and my horse got more and more fearful – these analyses became bona fide reasons not to ride.
To give you a bit of insight, this is the type of ‘help’ we’d get in Q & As.
“Oh hi…my horse gets tense at the mounting block. What do you suggest?”
And the Guru would answer “Well it looks like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. You need to fix your mindset before you do anything else”
And as that poor person went away to lick their wounds, some other brave soul would pipe up…
“Err, excuse me Sir. My horse doesn’t like being scratched… Why do you think that is?”
And he’d shoot them down in a ball of flames by saying “Your horse is giving you an important message. Please reassess what you’re doing because if you keep this up you’ll be destined for failure”
So with that kind of problem solving wisdom coming from the Wise One, it’s not hard to see why it seemed safer just to do nothing…
And yet, here was this woman (we’ll call her Sandpaper because she was a touch abrasive but as it turned out, essential for an overhaul) just telling me to ‘get on with it’.
So I did.
After that lesson, I came back religiously at least once, sometimes twice a week.
And every lesson was better than the last because I wasn’t so much learning how to ride, I was remembering.
And I can’t even tell you how fantastic it was to feel the ancient muscle memory come alive as I slowly unfolded from the fetal position of fear.
Within weeks I’d remembered how to just ‘get on with it’ when Shady spooked at a bird, instead abandoning ship and blaming my mindset 🙄
I was finally, FINALLY able to ride like I was steering that damn ship and that we would be ok 💪
And after all the indoctrination of the last 18 months, I realised that there was really nothing wrong with providing clear instructions.
There was nothing cruel and no abuse.
In fact, it made sense that simple requests like ‘go now’ or ‘slow down’ were just part of a pretty simple horse-human communication system… and so, SO much more effective than deep breathing and hoping for some love.
And then… after a few weeks of believing that I could – instead of believing that I shouldn’t – I asked Sandpaper for a jumping lesson.
And to be perfectly honest, it was awful.
Hideous and unco and huffy-puffy, in fact 🤣
The fetal position of fear returned and even with the poles on the lowest hole, the jumps still seemed far too high….But by the end of the lesson we were jumping around a teeny-tiny course, and I was absolutely stoked.
And as my riding ability returned, so too did my lofty ambitions 😎👍
So that night, after my first jump lesson – I pulled up the local equestrian event calendar and entered my first Horse Trials in 23 years.
To the uninitiated, Horse Trials are also known as Eventing (or sometimes One-Day-Events – even though they’re usually held over two days… Confusing, right?)
Anywaaaaaaay….
Eventing, Horse Trials whatever you want to call them are a bit like horsey triathlons.
As in there are three different disciplines within the competition which are Dressage, Showjumping and Cross Country.
From a spectator perspective, Dressage is definitely the most dull.
It’s where the horse and rider are judged on their ability to execute manouvres around an arena.
In the higher levels they do all kinds of skippy, hoppy, sideways things but in the lower levels it’s a bit like watching grass grow.
And considering the level I was aiming for was the lowest of the low, the tasks expected in dressage for me were more like:
Stop, go…. do no nonsense.
Which was easy enough, you’d think 🤷♀️
The second of the sports is showjumping and it’s pretty straightforward.
In this component, the horse and rider combination need to get around a course of jumps made from long colourful sticks.
The sticks can be easily dislodged so you lose points for knocking them down….. and of course you’re also penalised if your horse stops for a look instead of actually jumping the jump.
The third part is Cross Country… and it’s what we’re all here for 💪
A Cross Country course is set out over a few kilometres through bush, paddocks or wide open land. It has anywhere from 15 to 25 ‘jumping efforts’ and some are pretty challenging – like ditches, banks and the eternal crowd favourite, the water jump.
In this phase, basically any lack of bravery gets penalised – stops, run outs, close inspections or stepping backwards all incur 20 penalties each.
Furthermore, you lose even more points for being slow….so let’s just say that wearing one’s Big Girl Pants is paramount in this part.
Needless to say, Cross Country is where the carnage happens and the adrenaline flows.
So for someone who’s entire jumping experience in the preceding two decades was ONE semi-successful jumping lesson over some microscopic fences – it seemed that entering a Horse Trials event was either incredibly brave or really quite stupid 🤷♀️
And with about 8 weeks until the event, I had a pretty steep climb ahead but also – for the first time in years, I finally had direction and purpose.
I couldn’t wait.
**** Read Chapter 7 Here *****