Fear or Fitness

I was carrying 2 bags of shavings down the aisle at a show. It was the last day, and my horses definitely deserved cushy stalls for their post cross country naps.

I couldn’t make it.

The bags seemed to be getting heavier by the minute…… and the aisle longer………It was like a horror movie where the hallway keeps growing and the more you run from your pursuers the farther you have to go.

The bags were a little wet. “They’re heavier than normal!” I told myself.

The aisle is especially long. That was true, but we’re talking shavings, not bricks.

I just ran 2 cross country rounds. Ok, and what about all those people that ran 6 or more rounds this weekend?

Or maybe……. I’m just an unfit pansy.

Or perhaps…….. I had just flat run out of adrenalin.

Riding Baby Seabiscuit was like that. After the whirling carnival ride that was cross country on Baby Seabiscuit, I always felt completely drained.

“Terror”, I told myself, “wears you out.”

It has always astounded me that professionals could ride 5, 6, 7 horses around at Intermediate or Advanced and then go play a round of golf afterwards.

I always imagined myself somewhere on an oxygen tank if I ever actually survived my first Advanced cross country.

I’ve also found the one day format rather exhausting. All 3 rides in one day, with all the prep and tack changes, usually did me in.

Then I trapesed off for my working student adventure and I’ve been outside riding horses 6 days per week for awhile. I went to my first show, a one day, and rode TheWonderPony.

It was a cake walk.

When I was done, I felt like I hadn’t done enough exercise and even considered going to the gym that night.

TOTAL INSANITY!

I pondered this new found stamina.

Surely…….. I wasn’t that “unfit” before……

Then I decided it’s because I wasn’t riding Baby Seabiscuit. No terror. No exhaustion.

Ah hah!!

But then last weekend happened.

I have a new pony.

And with any new relationship there are some trials and tribulations as you struggle through finding a common language, or at least some areas of compromise.

I rode TheWonderPony, and then I rode my new kiddo. He’s definitely part of the dinosaur gang and looks like a smaller version of Baby TRex, let’s call him the Velociraptor. He is smart and quick and talented, and far above Bad Eventer’s pay grade.

Ruh Roh.

Let me tell you. There was some serious anxiety involved in our first show. I was significantly more terrified to enter the ring on this guy than I ever was on Baby Seabiscuit.