Humbly Beautiful

          Last weekend, my daughter and I showed at the Eastern Slope reining in Castle Rock.  The judging was very conservative, and my daughter expressed frustration in her ride and her scores.  A teammate, who has been showing for about a year, scored better than she did.  Although she loves her friend dearly, it was with a tearful voice that she asked me, "Why does she score better than I do?"  
          Oh, I was full of answers and platitudes, and when I ran out of those, I gave her all I had left, which was simply a hug.  She echoed the feelings I had been struggling with, for me and for her.  The more I tried, and the more I learned, the less I was rewarded.

The Responsible One

There is a story about the Prodigal Son.  The story goes that there was a family with two sons.  The younger one, the prodigal son, cashed in his inheritance to see the world.  This son had gone out in true grasshopper form, spent all the money, attended all the parties, and was returning home, broke and contrite.  Upon his return home, his father threw a party.
          In the meantime, the older son stayed home.  The older son worked to improve his father's wealth, completing the tasks before him responsibly, timely, and efficiently.  When the father was tired, the older son worked more and sent the father in to drink some lemonade (taking a few liberties with the story here).    The older son learned the business, and worked harder than anyone to keep it going.  
          When the father rejoiced upon the return of the prodigal son, the older son stood in the yard, fists clenched in fury, betrayal, and hurt.  The father eventually came out into the yard and approached the son.  The older son shared his hurt and anger.  "Why do you celebrate the return of the one who discarded us and our love?  Why haven't you thrown a party to celebrate the love I have shown for you?"
          The father's reply was telling.  "You are always with me, and everything I have is yours."
          The older son imposed responsibility upon himself, and created rules for his relationship with his father.  He thought that his good deeds and hard work would earn his father's love.  He completely missed that what he sought so desperately, he already had.

Humility

When I show Sergio, I feel like the older son.  I have prepared for the ride, I have worked hard to earn my place in the pen.  When I am done, I think that my ride is at least as good as another, but I do not get the score to match.  
          I keep thinking that my good works are going to lead to reward.  When they do not, I am bitter and exhausted.  The amount of effort that I have put into being there, riding a technically correct ride, and controlling everything, are the things that cause the ride to lose its shine.
          The problem with showing the horse and being the responsible one is that the result is not pleasing.  Although the ride may be technically correct, it is not beautiful.  We can see that the horse is guided through the pattern, and that the horse can perform the maneuvers.  The rigidity in the rider, the defensiveness of the posture, the tightness of the rein cause us to hesitate.  Where we may have rewarded the maneuver, we detract instead.
          The real sticker to the story is humility.  The older son, in his pride for his good works refused the gift his father had for him every day.  The father said, "What's mine is yours."  The love that the older son sought to earn was already his.
          When we show our horses with humility and a desire to honor the love we have for our horse, the ride becomes not about what we do, but about who we are.  We can say to the world, "I do not deserve this horse, I have not earned this ride, but he is a gift for me.  I am going to enjoy him, and boldly ride him, and know in my heart that I will never, ever earn him, because he is already mine."

Beautiful Gift

Ultimately, that is what the ride is being judged upon.  Although I, as the responsible one, want the ride to be about what we do - a perfect spin, evenly balanced circles - a technically correct ride is not beautiful.

          A beautiful ride showcases the partnership between a rider and a horse.  With confidence, the team sets out to perform each maneuver to the best of their ability.  If a plus half spin is all that team has, but they perform it joyfully, well then, that's a plus half spin all day long.

          I am very intimidated by riding the ride that judges me and not what I do.  I am kidding myself if I believe that the ride is about anything else.  To humbly and exuberantly (can you be both?) step into the pen and perform the maneuvers with Sergio is a fine thing indeed.

          The performance as a team is important, but I can't earn Sergio because he is already mine. 

Not Good Enough

          Riding Sergio fills me with joy, and releases me from the distractions of a body at rest.  He doesn't care about what I accomplished today, or what achievements I have made.  He isn't distracted by the masks that I wear.  He only cares about the time we have together and that I am present and trusting.
          I, however, have higher expectations.  I struggle to ride him the way he should be ridden, to accept what he has to offer, and to bring my share to the team.  He is a such a beautiful, talented horse.  I tell myself that I should be able to show him successfully.
          I want to be in control of the ride, to dictate our speed and direction minutely.  I want to be able to execute every maneuver exactly according to plan.  Unfortunately, my efforts to control change the way I ride, and distort the cues I am giving to him.  Our ride ends up being tentative and discordant, and the judge can see it.  The score reflects the judge's opinion, and my confidence plunges.  When my score is announced, I hear "You are not good enough."
          The message is repeated as my coach gives me advice and feedback on the ride.  "You need to sit back when you stop him (you are not good enough)."
          As I go over my ride, I repeat the message again, "I think I turned him around better, but I got a penalty (I'm still not good enough)."
          This message has been haunting me for most of my life.  When I am in a good place, it's easy to tune out.  When times are difficult, like they are now, the words ring in my ears.  I offer up everything I do for review and approval.  If the response is critical, well, that's to be expected because I. Am. Not. Good. Enough.
Miss Goodie Two Shoes
          Maybe the message originated during my childhood, as a middle child.  My response to a house full of girls was to be the good girl, to get along.  If my older sister struggled with her grades, mine would be A's.  If my younger sister quit her miserable California job and moved back home, I would tough it out and work an awful job.  The problem is that even as I tried my best to do the right thing and to be good, what I longed for was attention.
          Naturally, no one worries about a good girl.  No one lectures her, or encourages her, or tells her she is tough enough to overcome obstacles.  No one rushes in to save her from a disaster, because she never risks having one.  Instead, they leave her alone, because she has it all figured out.  Right?  Although I was good, I was never good enough to receive the praise I craved.
          My older sister recently bought a bottle of wine for me - "Middle Sister Goodie Two Shoes."  She probably wouldn't have if she knew how much it hurt.  The description on the label pierced my heart, because it was true, every word.
The Fire
           One of my favorite quotes from the Wizard of Oz is "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"  That's because I feel like everything I do is a mirage, a carefully constructed play to hide the fact that I am not good enough.
         Riding and showing Sergio is fearful business.  Not because riding him scares me, although sometimes it does.  What is really scary is the possibility of failing.  I am afraid that everyone can see right through the self-controlled masks, right through the good girl, and discover my secret:  I am not good enough for this beautiful horse.
          The whole purpose of showing is to be judged.  I am painfully aware that I am being watched by not only the paid judge, but also my coach (who I have a sinking suspicion already knows my flaws), my friends, and my family.  When I ride in the show pen, I feel as though I am being held up to the light.  As the bright light of my desire shines through me, it reveals all of my flaws.
          This scares the hell out of me.
Don't Give Up
          Showing horses is a hard business.  The rules keep changing, and there's always someone who rides better, has a better horse, or has more money.  The cold, hard truth is that I will never be good enough.  I will never have it all figured out.
          Nobody ever promised me that I would be good at showing horses.  Even so, no matter how sternly I address my heart, I cannot deny the love I have for riding.  To quit is to give up on myself.  Maybe my dreams don't tie to the reality of my ability (or funding).  Without horses, I am lost, and empty.  So for now, I will continue to slog it out, and hope that I can find peace from my good girl, and acceptance that not good enough is still Enough.

Can you see that person dancing in the flames on Sergio?  That's me - dirty, grubby, imperfect me.

I would like to thank Emily Freeman and her book, Grace for the Good Girl, for the inspiration and for the words I just couldn't find.

Captain of My Soul

How to Check Your Horse for Soreness

          Being a prey animal, most horses tend to hide their pain.  Or we tend to misread their pain signals.  The pinned ears, biting, and swishing tails are easy markers; but most of us wish to know if our horse hurts long before then.
          One of the best ways to catch pain early is to get to know your horse.  Watch how he moves in the pasture, when being led, and under saddle.  Run your hands over his body as you groom to get to know the scars, bumps, and sensitive areas he has when he is healthy.

          Look at your horse from all sides.  Are the muscles balanced?  Is the horse holding himself straight and true, or does the tail or head cock off to one side or the other?  Look along the top of your horse from behind.  Are the shoulders even?  Are the glute muscles even?
          Up close, use your sense of touch and observe how the horse reacts to your touch.  It helps to know if your horse has sensitive skin, or not.  A skin sensitivity can be tested by how the horse responds to a stiff brush, to a rubber curry, and to your nails.  In observation by touch, you can feel muscular tone, check reflex response, feel for heat, and draw out pain reactions.

• Muscular tone should be loose, with minimal resistance, much like raw meat.  Pushing on a major muscle group should flow to other areas, and jiggle.  If the muscle is tight, the horse may be holding their pain throughout their body, or just have an issue in the area you are working on.  If there is swelling or a fluid pocket, you will feel little or no resistance or a tightness, depending on the stage of the swelling.  
• Check in the front shoulder and chest area where the muscle should have some tightness, but soreness is indicated by a guitar-string feeling.  
• In the withers and upper shoulder area, the girth, the loin, the major butt muscle, and the hamstrings, the sore muscle will feel more like well-done meat, or cause a drawing (tightening or flexing) of that muscle or nearby muscles.
• Reflex response is primarily in the loin and buttocks.  Draw your fingers about one inch on one side of the spine, from the loin to the tail.  Use the back of your thumbnail, with moderate pressure.  A horse with proper reflex response will tuck under themselves slightly.  Severe response or reverse response (hollowing the back) is also an indication of soreness.  Repeat on the other side.
• Sometimes, the sore muscle will feel hot, or there will be a static charge in the area.  This is another reason to approach gently and move slowly.  A static shock will startle the horse, and you may spend more time soothing them than checking for soreness.  Run your hand down their legs and feel for heat or swelling in the joints, knees, and hoof.  Other times, a sore muscle will be bound up, cutting off proper circulation.  In that case, the area will feel cooler than other areas.  
• Pain reactions are generally pulling away from your touch.  If the pain is severe, the horse may reach around to bite, threaten to kick, kick, or pull back against the tie.  Start your palpation gently, at the horse's shoulder.  If the horse is not familiar with you, speak gently as you work, and take breaks for petting to help the horse relax.  More subtly, the muscle itself or related muscles nearby will tighten and pull away from your touch as well.

          Observing your horse from a distance is another great way to check for soreness.  The most obvious sign is lameness or head-bobbing.  More subtle signs are shortness of stride, a stabbing stride, higher headset or lower headset, and side-to-side pelvic movement.  A healthy horse will naturally stride evenly on both sides, and the rear stride will reach up underneath the horse, causing the pelvis to tip underneath. Watching other horses as they move will give you a more discerning eye, practice this when you can.
          One final way to know if your horse is sore:  trusting your gut.  If your horse seems "off" or unwilling to perform a particular maneuver, or if working with your horse is more difficult, especially if one side is more reactive than another, they may be trying to tell you something.
          Watching your horse and using your hands, head, and heart to gauge how they are feeling each day is a great way to identify their pain quickly.  Often, catching the problem early will mean a quick solution and a quick recovery.

The Day I Fell Off (A Story about Trust)

          Anyone who has spent any amount of time knows what I’m talking about – falling off.  When I first learned to ride, that’s pretty much what I thought riding was – climbing on, clinging as long as possible, falling off, rinse and repeat.  Literally:  rinse the dirt out of my mouth, climb back on and do it again.  Eventually, falling off got to hurting more, and staying on got to be a goal.  Now that I’m older, falling off hurts A LOT more, and I spend quite a bit of time thinking about staying on. 

          Last spring, I fell off in a big way.  We were riding in the outdoor arena, working on our stops.  If you’ve watched reining, or ridden reining, you know what that’s about.  It’s about running the length of the arena at top speed, and then asking your horse to stop.  If all is right in the world, the horse will tuck his hind legs under and slide to a stop.  Really cool if it’s right.  Really scary if it’s not. 

          On this particular day, we were taking our game to the next level.  I had been going to shows and getting scores of 69.  I wanted 72’s.  To get there, we had to take a risk.  We had to push our maneuvers to the next level, which means going faster, running harder, and trusting more.  That’s what we were doing on that Saturday morning.  I was running him harder to his stops, and he was trying harder in his stops.  Unfortunately, I mistook trying harder for doing more.  I thought that I needed to push more with my body, to sit back farther, to steer with my hand.  Inadvertently, I took away the trust I had with Sergio.  Going slow, I trusted that he could perform the maneuver with me aboard as a passenger.  Going faster, suddenly I was grabbing the steering wheel, pushing the gas pedal and working the clutch.  Sergio was confused.  In fact, he looked back at me a couple of times as if to say, “What are you doing?  I don’t understand this new language you are speaking.”

          The ultimate result was that he came into the ground crooked, his back end slaloming off to the right, his front end jarring into the ground.  I popped up out of the saddle and off to the right.  I had a moment to clutch at the saddle, but all I saw below was dirt.  So I fell off.  It was not pretty.  I left my own slide tracks with my butt and hip.  As I crawled around, alternately pressing my forehead into the dirt in pain and fumbling for my glasses, I wanted to quit.  I was pushed beyond my limit, and scared.  Truly scared, and this is not something I enjoyed one bit.  But I knew that I had to get back on, to try the stop again, and do it quickly before the fear really set in.  I didn’t need to worry about Sergio’s fear, he understands forgiveness, and offers it up most of the time.

          As I climbed back on, knowing I was going to have a beautiful bruise and maybe some swelling, my hands were shaking.  My heart was pounding, my thoughts were racing.  Even as I readied myself to do it again, I was coming up with excuses not to.  Instead, I pointed him to the other end of the pen and kissed.  Or at least I pursed my dry lips together and squeezed my shaking legs.  Sergio took off for the other end of the arena.  As we loped, I told myself that I absolutely had to trust Sergio to do his job.  I had to let go of driving and be the passenger (or I would die).  It worked; we stopped bigger than we had all day.  We quit on that one, but the lesson was learned.

          The tricky thing about trust is that it is easy to give when I am in control.  When Sergio is providing the impulsion, locked in and doing his job, it’s a lot harder to trust.  I noticed, too, that the trust can quietly erode away when we don’t challenge ourselves as a team.  If I get in the habit of riding the maneuvers at home at a medium pace, I lose the trust I have in pushing ourselves to go faster.  Then we are right back in the same situation, I’m trying to drive and he’s sitting in the driver’s seat. 

         The thing about the stop is that you absolutely cannot Flinch.  As you are flying down the length of the arena, you must remain calm.  Your middle must be supple, your legs relaxed, your hand down.  I repeat the words of my coach – your hand down.  No really, you must put your hand down.  If you pick your hand up, it is equivalent to putting your foot on the clutch.  The engine revs but the car slows down.  If you are focused on the end of the arena and your jaw is set, your eyes are up, your body is flowing with the horse, and the pounding of his hooves fill your head … then, whoa.  The horse (who is now one with you) drops out from under you, your body rocks from side to side as he powers to hold on to the ground.  You can hear the friction of his sliders on the arena base, and it is a deep moan that echoes in your chest.  There is no thought at this time, no worry or wonder, and no doubt.  It is simply, “Whoa.”

Should I Geld Him?

          Sergio (Itsgoodtobeapepto) is a son of Peptoboonsmal out of a big, beautiful daughter of Doc O Lena.  I have owned him for four years, having purchased him from Todd Crawford's place when he was four.
          I am a Nonpro Reiner.  I have been riding and showing reining horses for over 10 years.  After owning a couple of confidence-breaking geldings, riding Sergio was a breath of fresh air.  I enjoyed riding a horse who was interested in my thoughts and opinions only after he checked out the mares in the area.  His confidence has given me confidence.

          He has always been a gentleman, and never so stud-ish that I was afraid.  My twelve-year old daughter has ridden him, and she leads him around safely.  Again, he is always well-behaved, keeping his head down near her and walking quietly to wherever she leads.  Unfortunately, as a stud, my daughter cannot show him.
          He has performed well in the show pen, for both of my trainers and for me.  He has grace and beauty.  He has been shown in cowhorse a handful of times, where he has been a great competitor.  He has won a couple of buckles, and he clearly enjoys it.  He has also done well as a reining competitor.  One of my trainers won the Intermediate Open year end award in our affiliate on him this past year.  The prior year, I won third in the Novice Horse Nonpro division.
          My trainer has advised me to geld him.  He thinks that my daughter would be more competitive if she showed this horse, and he says that if I am not going to breed or promote him, I do not need to own a stallion.  He also thinks that Sergio would be worth more if he were a gelding.
          Sergio's semen have low motility, making shipping it near impossible.  I have attempted to promote him in the past, but I have a full-time job and my trainer has other more successful studs in his barn.  So Sergio's exposure is limited.
          I am in conflict.
          I am afraid to cut him.  The way he is now is wonderful.  He's engaging and fun, he is in beautiful physical shape, and we are competitive in the show pen.  It seems a waste of great bloodlines to take away the opportunity to breed him.  My vet is confident he could settle a mare if the mare were inseminated on site, with fresh semen.
          I am afraid of what he will become and what I will lose if I geld him.
          Does anyone have experience with this?  What is your advice?

Barn Time

Photo by Johnny Magnusson via Freestockphotos.net

          Whenever I go to the barn, I find that the passage of time changes.  My sister calls this "being present."  What she means is that she is fully in the moment while she is in the barn, even if it's cleaning stalls.  
          C.S. Lewis says that living in the present is the closest we will ever come to eternity during this lifetime.  Reflecting back on the times I have been in the present with my horse, I agree.  When I spend time with Sergio, I focus only on him, and the effect is meditative.  When I am done, I feel refreshed and ready to face the world again.
          How I get there is simple now, but it wasn't always easy.  The pressures of life and the long list of things to do always seemed to come between me and my joy.  By following these three steps, I am able to enjoy my time at the barn (most of the time).
1)  Give myself permission to spend all the time I need.
2)  Schedule this time and stick to it.
3)  Do not hurry, and follow a routine to prepare my mind for this time.
          Something about spending time with Sergio fills me with joy.  Time stretches out, and I am not hurrying anymore.  In the couple of hours it took me to ride and groom him, time seemed to be a friend.

Spending that many hours in the saddle gave a man plenty of time to think.  That's why so many cowboys fancied themselves Philosophers.  ~Charles M. Russell