Disappointment

a horse rider’s silent stalker

Yesterday I rode my horse for the first time in the New Year… and it was a real letdown.

I’d been really looking forward to the ride. I’d barely had time to do anything with him lately. We’ve just come through the longest spring I can remember and I’ve been thoroughly exhausted from the strict regime of laminitis prevention management enforced upon pretty much all of my horses, due to the seemingly interminable grass growth we’ve had. (What a hay season though!)

The beginning of a New Year is my favourite time of year. It’s a time of hope, planning and looking forward with renewed enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm beware, because disappointment is silently stalking.

It’s lurking just around the corner, watching and waiting to ambush you when you’re not looking. Sometimes you’re expecting it; as riders we all get those gut feelings. We’re taking a gamble with the unknown when something just could easily go one way as the other. We accept that the illusions of safety or success can be gone in the speed of a horse’s heartbeat.

Yet, sometimes the veil of disappointment settles over us completely unannounced.

The last time I rode was our best ride so far, and the time before that was too! I’d been pretty consistent for a few months with our Equine PT exercise program and the results were impressive.

While I hadn’t been riding my horse I sure had been learning! I’ve been gobbling up a Classical Dressage book by one of the few trainers in the world making the highest levels of dressage training accessible, and I’d watched him giving lessons through online streaming of a clinic with his regular (and very accomplished) pupils.

I was full ideas, things that I wanted to try and things that I’d read about and was keen to see if I could feel too. To complete the picture of understanding.

I get on my horse and in rolls disappointment. It’s been a while since it last visited, but it’s still a familiar feeling.

Once again we can’t bend to the right, and we’re so far down on the forehand that I feel like I have to hold the horse up myself. Goodbye lightness. Farewell balance; it was nice to have you but now you’re gone.

All I can do is start the re-building process. All over again.

Hello square one. Well, to be fair it’s probably square two, because at least this time we can still bend to the left!

This is what happens when your horse is on grazing restrictions and has been living in small paddocks and yards for months on end… and you haven’t been walking him.

I’m disappointed for my riding goals, but that’s the least of it, really. I’m disappointed in myself, because theoretically I knew this would happen but didn’t realise in time to do anything about it. I’m disappointed for my horse because his body has stiffened up again, and he has to live in that crooked and tight body every day.

I can’t dwell on these feelings though, no sense indulging in self-pity. I’ve already booked my favourite equine therapist to come to see him and I’m hoping that with what I learned the last time we went through the process that the results will come quicker and easier this time.

Obviously some of the goodness has stuck as we can still bend to the left, and I’ll take whatever small victory I can get right now! These feelings will pass and I’ve got the whole rest of the year ahead of me, including winter which is always my most productive season with my own horses.

Time to do what we all do when the silent stalker strikes… pick myself up, dust myself off, and start again.