A Slice of Humble Pie...

Warning: There's a bit of a whine coming up. If that's not your cup of tea, or you're just not in the mood for it, feel free to skip this post.  No hard feelings.  Really.

It's winter, which means that our trainer heads South for warmer climates.  Budget constraints, and educational and employment obligations keep us up North, freezing our tuckuses off.  No biggie.  As my Nana always said, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Our trainer made arrangements for another trainer to teach us while she's away.  Before she left she had this interim trainer come and give the kids lessons so we'd have a sense of what to look forward to.  I was impressed by the new trainer's attention to basics and felt our time with her would be a positive one for the three of us.

Fast forward to last week, our first lesson.  Holy crap, what an eye-opener that was!  I went in to the lesson expecting to get some correction for bad habits.  What I did not expect was to come out of the lesson feeling like the world's worst rider ever.  Not that I feel I'm a particularly good rider, but I did feel I could be considered to be fairly adequate.  Let me tell you, I was disabused of that notion, fast and in a hurry!  I knew I had issues, but did not expect to have more than my kid did. (And yes, I am completely aware that makes me sound like the world's worst mother, but hey, I'm trying to be honest here, and you guys know I've never been afraid to admit I'm far from perfect.)

Sophie and I rode together, and as expected the new trainer, who will henceforth be known as T2, commented on and corrected a few of her form faults, such as her hand carriage and her leg position. Now, normally I'd have considered myself a slightly better rider than my kids.  If you'd seen our joint lesson last week, you'd have thought Sophie was the accomplished rider and I was the rank beginner.  My legs were in the wrong position, my hands were a nightmare, my seat was too heavy, my elbows locked, and my body moved way too much, like a sack of spastic potatoes, while I was jumping.  There was a whole laundry list of other issues as well, but I can't remember them all.

On top of that, T2 did not like Sugar at all.  She thought Sug was heavy on the forehand, stiff as a board, and unwilling to work.  I'll admit I actually took this worse than I did T2's assessment of my own skills.  I may suck, but every trainer I have ever had has loved Sug, finding her supple, light in the hand, and extremely willing willing to work.  All of them have commented that of the horses they had to ride in the course of their day, Sugar was one they looked forward to sitting on.

When I've ridden in clinics before, every clinician (Bernie Traurig, Jeff Cook, and Eric Horgan) have all loved my mare.  One of those clinicians is an Olympian, one was a top show jumper who won numerous grands prix and represented the US on many Nation's Cup teams, and the other was assistant trainer to George Morris for a number of years, a successful rider in his own right, and a frequent contributor to Practical Horseman magazine.  My point here is that is these guys liked Sug, so she couldn't be too bad, right?

To say I was a bit taken aback is an understatement.  And yeah, I realize my ego was bruised, and yes, I know I was in a strop because of her assessment of my horse.  I couldn't figure out if this lady just didn't like me for some reason or if I truly do suck, in which case, why didn't any of my other trainers point this fact out to me? Had they just given up, feeling I was beyond help? Is T2 right in her assessment of me and my other trainers did me a disservice by allowing me to continue as I had been? Or is she wrong and the other trainers right?  I had some serious soul searching to do, and I needed to try to take my ego and outraged horse-mama self out of the equation and look at the reality of the situation.

The way I saw it, I had a couple choices:

1)  I could say we were not a fit and discontinue working with her while my kids my kids continued to lesson with her.  After all, I'd only be on my own for a couple months.  Not ideal, but hey, you can say that life is too short to deal with something that doesn't make you happy or makes you  uncomfortable.  Especially as riding is supposed to be fun.

~OR~

2) I could do a couple more lessons with her, see what happened, see if there was improvement, and reassess from that point.  I was a swimmer in college, and played softball, basketball, and soccer during my school days.  I know that anytime a coach adjusted my stroke, swing, shot or kick it felt awkward as hell for a while until I broke my bad habit and retrained my muscle memory.   I could tell myself that T2 has trained many people in our area successfully, so odds are she has something to teach me.

I'm going with option 2, at least for the moment.  My bruised ego and I will stick it out for a while and see what happens.  Option 1 feels too much like giving up and quitting to me, and that's not how I roll or what I want to model for my kids.  I don't want them to think that when things are different or uncomfortable that you just get to throw in the towel. I'm willing to concede that I'm having an issue because this situation is uncomfortable for me, and that there is a very real possibility there may be something positive that will come of this.  So I'm hanging in there for now.

I've since had another lesson, and while I still felt like a remedial rider, there was some improvement.  More importantly, I've seen how her attention to detail has improved the kids' riding, so if she can help them, well, I have to believe she can help me.  I have another lesson today, and I guess I'd say I am cautiously optimistic.

Many thanks to those of you who read through this whole whine and for allowing me to self-therapize.  I'll keep you posted on how this goes.  Feel free to comment with your thoughts, even if it's just to tell me to pull my big girl pants up. I can take it.

Sometimes the Best Horse Shows Are the Worst Ones...

OK, I know what you're asking.  "Have you been hitting the vino again, Amy?"  The answer to that would be NO, although I might contemplate having a glass at some point.

Yesterday was the Pony Jockey's first horse show of the season, the Four Seasons show at Duncraven Stables in Titusville, NJ.  We spent Saturday primping and polishing the pony, making a last minute run to Dover (how is it possible for a child to grow so quickly and to lose so dang many gloves??) and then on Sunday morning we got up at o' dark hundred to make the hour-long drive to the show.  Luckily the impending rain was holding off, so we considered that a good sign. 

Silly us.  Cookie, normally the most reliable of ponies, a pony who considers herself a Very Important Horse Show Pony, was apparently not in the mood to horse show yesterday.  She's entitled to not be in the mood.  We all get that way sometimes. 

Here's what happened: We were entered in Pre-Children's Hunter and Equitation: My trainer had Soph and Cookie school for only a little while as the footing in the schooling ring wasn't optimal. Since Cookie is older and had broken her splint bone, my trainer likes be conservative and save her legs for the classes.  No arguments there.  The footing in the outdoor ring was a bit sticky from some earlier rain, and my trainer told Sophie she'd need to ride with some real impulsion to help Cookie get over the fences.  Soph rode in, and promptly forgot her instructions. They got to fence number 2, an oxer with yellow flowers, and the pony, realizing her pilot was asleep at the wheel,  said, "No, thank you very much" and ducked out left.  She did that twice more and they retired.  The good news was the child didn't seem upset or mad at the pony -- which made me quite happy.

Re-evaluating the strategy

So, for round 2, our trainer instructed Sophie to ride up more, add more inside leg, and use an opening outside rein to hold Cookie on the right track.  Well, Cookie is not usually a stopper, but she's also no dope, and by now she'd decided that she saw herself a quick way back to the trailer and her hay.  Three drive-bys past the same oxer out they went, Exit Stage Left. Off went pony, child and trainer to the schooling ring.  Luckily the child was still fine about the whole thing, no anger at the pony, no tears.  Just  an "Okay, we have a problem to fix" kind of attitude.   I was trying to take notes, as I'm not sure I'd have been as composed..

By now I'm a bit worried that there's something wrong with the pony.  My mare is not a stopper, but if she does, it's usually a sign that something hurts.  So while they schooled I prayed to the Horse Show gods that the pony wasn't hurting somewhere.  I'm a natural worrier, so I was envisioning catastrophic breakdowns, MRIs, career ending injuries.  My husband took one look at me and told me to stop, that the pony was just testing Soph. (Not inconcievable, as Cookie's a very smart pony and does not see why she should be doing all the work if her pilot is daydreaming away up there.)

It seems Cookie was not in pain, just in a mood.  My trainer suggested menopause, as Cookie is 16 now.  No matter, because for round 3 Soph clearly had her head in the game and rode like her life depended on it.  That pony not only had pace, she was going around that ring like her tail was on fire!  As they approached the bogey fence, Soph held her inside leg on the pony like an iron rail and held a wide opening outside rein, and about 4 strides from the fence she went to the stick like a jockey coming down to the wire on Derby day.  Needless to say Cookie said a firm "Yes, Ma'am" and cleared that fence like she'd never even thought of going by it.

Finally! Over the bogey fence.

Needless to say the pony knew we were on to her tricks and had found herself an engine, and it was in full gear. The next couple rounds were a bit brisk, to say the least, and gave Soph a few real good opportunities to "cowgirl up"  and learn to stick the long ones.  God love her, she came out of the ring with a huge grin on her face, patting her pony for a job well done.  'Did you see how fast we were going that time?" she asked.  Last I checked, neither Hunter or Eq rounds were judged on speed, but so what, the kid and the pony were now having fun, and that's what matters.

So in terms of ribbons won, it was not the best of days (although we did get a few ribbons). In terms of lessons learned, though, it was definitely a banner experience.  A year or two ago a day like that would have sent the child fetal.  Now she grins through it and tells her pony she's a good girl.  She learned to gut out a difficult round, make the best out of some lousy spots and get over them and move on to the next fence.  She learned she could stick with a pony that was being less than perfect, and if that isn't a confidence builder, I don't know what is.  Most importantly, to my way of thinking, she clearly showed that the ribbon was not what mattered, rather it was the time spent with one's pony and the experience of learning together that was.

Way to go, kiddo.  Momma's proud of you.

The humans are happy, but Cookie's
still wondering where her hay is.