In all honesty, I didn’t want to write about this show riding-wise. I don’t know if it was nerves or I got into my head but this show didn’t go very well for me. We started in the jumper ring, doing the 1.10 classes to get into the ring before the weekend. In our first class, we had four rails, 16 faults. I kept making the wrong decisions to the jump and asking my horse to take off in places where he should never have to take off from. Of course, my horse was more than amazing and saved me more times than I can count which I couldn’t ask for more from him. Anyway, the next day in the jumper ring it went a little better, we only had two rails as opposed to four the day before. Nonetheless, that’s two more rails than I would like to have. The WIHS Jumper Phase was on Friday, which was set 1.10 in the jumper ring and boy was I nervous about keeping the jumps up. We did the 1.10 class before the equitation class and we had two rails, great... Going into the class, I wasn’t expecting to go clear given our history at this show. Somehow, the stars aligned and we went clear, it was our best round of the show so far.
Even though we had just had one of our best rounds of the show, I was still having anxiety about keeping the rails up and making the right decisions. I was getting jumped loose over the jumps a bit in the 1.10 so I shortened my stirrups and that was a game-changer. Oh man, I felt like I was in a whole new world, I could stay with my horse easily and stay with the motion of the horse so much better. With shortening my stirrups and working one-on-one with my trainer, my confidence was slowly coming back. My rounds were getting better and better and from my first round on Wednesday to my last found on Sunday, there was a huge difference not only in my mindset but also in my riding. This has been one of the hardest horse shows for me mentally and I feel like it showed me a part of the psychological aspect of riding that I haven’t had to face yet.
On a note unrelated to showing, I got the privilege of working for Casey Sorita and Ross Alexander of Therapy Corner Store. For those that are unfamiliar, Therapy Corner Store is an equine therapy company that works to make our horses feel their best with therapies such as Equitape, Multiradiance Laser, Bemer, Aromatherapy, and Deep Muscle Stimulator just to name a few. I worked for them throughout the week after I was done riding and learned valuable information about the work they do. I was able to do basic tape patterns with the Equitape and learned about the releases and what those releases mean. I look forward to working more with them in the future and learning more about how I can make my horse feel better.
Once again, a big thank you to Casey Sorita of Therapy Corner Store for the opportunity to work with her. Of course, thank you to my trainers John Turner and Quinn Partridge and my mom for making this week possible. Now back home to Evergreen!