Well, I know better than to establish any hard and fast resolutions for the New Year, so I am going to keep it simple.
I am going to try to do better. Do better with my eating, my activity, my management of my business, my role as a wife/sister/daughter/aunt/friend, my writing, my riding, all of it. Just a smidge better all around.
Eat less, move more. (It doesn’t get more simple than that.) But I am a goal-oriented girl, so I am thinking I might find a spring 5K to get around just to keep me focused on the treadmill.
There’s little excuse to hibernate in the winter, between the treadmill, the weight bench, the snowshoes and the barn full of never-ending chores (never mind my house, which could always stand a good cleaning).
I’m vowing to ride every day that we get temps above 20 and a wind chill that’s not cheek-numbing. In other words, if I can inhale without my boogers freezing, I’m in. One horse, Ned, is shod. One barefoot boy is tough as nails (Sarge) and I’m going to get a set of Easyboot Gloves for the other (Ace). I’ll just ride whoever fits the footing best.
I have an article coming out in Endurance News this month (January, 2011). Some days I am all charged up about selling and writing a book –and yes, in that order, as I found out about publishing non-fiction during the last year– other days I sort of shrug my shoulders and figure that there are a whole lot of people on the planet with more fascinating things to say, and a whole lot more style in doing so. We’ll see where that one goes.
With our new (to us) truck, we’re saddled with (no pun intended) payments, so I’ve been a diligent little business owner during the last few weeks, contacting new/old/dormant/prospective clients and begging a bit of work in the hopes of getting ahead a bit financially. It would stink to have that nice truck in the driveway and not the means to get out and compete much this year.
Lots of challenges. None of them insurmountable in the least. It is a good place to be, and I am thankful for that.
It was 50-some degrees here in WNY yesterday. Unfortunately, it was also pouring, which left time only to free longe each of the three boys between deluges.
This morning the temperatures had dropped by over 20 degrees, but with the snow melted and footing still semi-manageable, I gave myself a pep talk and decided to dressage school Ned.
It is amusing to me that Ned, at nearly 17, is still the horse that I have to talk myself into riding when it is brisk and he is well-rested. Fear is an emotion that is quick to learn and slow and difficult to extinguish. And believe me, when he was 4 and 5 and 6, fear was not an unreasonable emotion to have when one contemplated riding Ned. Naughty and athletic and hyper-reactive, he was (and is, to this day) the only horse I’ve ever ridden who has dumped me with such frequency and ease.
So today, I tacked him up in dressage-wear, bribed him hopefully with peppermints, and did my best to not piss him off before mounting. There are a million ways to piss off Ned, from how you groom him to how you place the saddle on his back, to how you bridle him and tighten the girth.
Apparently I passed muster with the big guy, because I was treated to one of the softest and nicest rides I’ve had in a very long time. With the chill in the air, we walked only a few laps of the ring before Ned brought his nose deep and plunged upward into a trot.
Now, before you obedience/submission/DQ militant types get in my grill, I’m the first one to say the “right” thing to do when offered an unsolicited upward transition would be to fix the gait for a moment, then ask for the downward transition as a correction.
Hmm. Well. Ned has taught me, for well over a decade, that what is “right” may not work for him.
Case in point. Back in the day when I still taught riding, I had a mentor who “bribed” her horses with sugar cubes. A bribe for taking the bit, a bribe for a tightened girth, a bribe for standing quietly at the mounting block to be mounted. I pooh-poohed my mentor on this one. *My* horses would behave because that was the expectation, that was the correct behavior, because there were consequences for failing to comply.
I mocked her, I admit, using a baby talk voice (yes, she did that too, something I pledge I will not succumb to) — “Okay Teddy, I’ll give you a cookie if you promise to be a good, gooooood booooyyyyyy.”
That conviction served me well for a number of years and for several horses that I trained. Until Ned.
Who resolutely fussed and carried on during grooming and tacking up. Who could go from “whoa” to “upward launch” during mounting. Who could be just plain dangerous.
It got to the point that bribing him, despite my convictions, was the safer path to follow. I’ve bribed him into a million different positive behaviors. It does not stop him from being naughty; nay, he’s still got a dozen tricks up his sleeve and an opinion on everything, but it has saved my ham royally.
Ned will stand anywhere, and I do mean anywhere, to be mounted.
Bribery. A lost art.
Okay, back to my ride. So I acquiesced to the unrequested launch into trot, resolved my wobbly outside hand and rode boldly into the gait. Ned, to my surprise, wasn’t the least bit slow or stiff or uneven. So around we went, trotting, for a good 15 minutes, changing bend and direction and the engagement of his trot, while I enjoyed mightily: A.) feeling warm, B.) Ned’s gentle snuffling snorts in rhythm with his gait, and C.) the opportunity to focus on my equitation as Ned quietly stayed round and soft and working buoyantly from behind.
“Right shoulder back” is what Rachel told me when we rode 50 miles together in New Jersey in November, so I focused on that every time I changed anything — bend, direction, tempo. “Right shoulder back.”
Yep, that resolution. To try to do a little bit better.
And Ned was so responsive, so generous, that then I could focus on lowering my heels, riding long through my leg, steadying my contact (“right shoulder back”) and looking up and around rather than at Ned’s mismatched ears.
Down to a walk, with lots of pats and Ned so generous in his submission (something that stuns me to write, even as I type it) that I simply basculed my contact and kept him in a nice deep, soft contact. No sense giving it away when the horse was offering it up on a platter.
I’d planned to quit then, but thought, oh, what the hell, the big boy probably needs to get a few canter bucks in to crack his back. Who am I to deny him that joy?
First request to canter through sitting trot. He missed. I forced myself to simply wait, change nothing, stay upright, offer the inside rein and ask again. Cantercantercanter, soft and forward and round. Same in the other direction. Lots of good boys and focus on a following rein (“right shoulder back”) to reward his generous reach.
Transition to walk. Patpatpat.
“What a gooooooddddd booyyyyyy!” (Yes, it is conceivable that a little baby talk tone snuck in there.)
This horse humbles me.
When he was five, I recall worrying over his soundness, knowing that he’d need to last a long, long time in order to make up for his youthful naughty behavior.
It seems we’re reaping what we’ve sown. This guy gets better and better.
Like him, I’m planning to do the same in 2011.