I love this time of year! I love my job and the excitement and challenges it requires during the busy season but I also love slowing down, reflecting and planning for the New Year! While reflecting I try to consider what went well, what didn’t go so well, what I want to keep, what I want to let go of and maybe what I want to add. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have a great concept of time or the energy it takes to fulfill my commitments. This limitation also conflicts with my driven personality. Many
times I do it all wrong before I figure out a way to do it better. So a yearly reflection becomes even more important to me. I want to keep learning and growing, not just surviving and barely getting through a day. I want all the moments where things didn’t go so well to be assessed and to become lessons for improvement. I think about these things in the context of my personal life and my business life but for this blog I want to focus on my competitive life.
Cowboy Dressage for me, like many of you, is a place that I call home. It’s a place where my personal values dovetail with Cowboy Dressage’s and it’s where those values are honored and rewarded. It’s a place where the people feel more like family to me than fellow competitors. I love it and I am completely bought in!
So naturally, I planned my 2016 calendar around the Cowboy Dressage Finals Gathering. And my focus was on Top Hand. All the other tests I would ride and practice were to prepare us for Top Hand. Plus, we had to add some fun to the mix, with a Freestyle routine.
Although in 2015 I rode in Top Hand on my horse, Stretch, I really wanted to ride my eighteen-year-old athletic, little cow horse, Sam. When I was trying to make my decision in 2015, I talked to Lyn Ringrose-Moe about it and she advised me to make the safe choice and take Stretch. Since there was so much unknown for me with Top Hand at the time, I agreed with her. Stretch is very steady. He’s the same horse day in and day out. He’s slow and gives a rider time to think. He’s a confidence builder and can absorb and handle a lot of stress. He can handle the competitive stress as well as the stress of the training that leads up to a challenging competition.
My boy Sam, on the other hand, is almost the opposite. Sam has a lot of energy and he’s quick. He is very happy to work hard physically and thankfully repetition does not bother him. I can ride him all day. He’s so athletic that he can put any body part wherever I desire it. But on the flip side of those good things, even though I have done an enormous amount of emotional training with him, I am never quite sure which Sam I might be riding on any given day. Let me give you an example. 
The day before we left for Finals, Sam was convinced there was a boogieman in the creek by my arena. It was such a drama fest that I had to forget about practicing anything and take care of his emotions. He couldn’t get past it; we got nothing done that day. Stress! When we are at a show, Sam also looks for boogiemen while in route to the show pen, even if I take the same route every day for all four tests! Stress! And I am so embarrassed to admit as a trainer, let alone a trainer riding an eighteen-year-old, the following drama fest. While practicing the Mystery Test, Sam and I had an arena to ourselves for a brief time. An arena to ourselves sounds great to me but that means no buddy horse for Sam. That means emotional melt down for Sam. Stress! Stress! Thankfully, he pulled it together pretty well for the Mystery Test. With all that emotion, one can only imagine how Sam’s gaits might be affected. Steadiness and rating speed can be a challenge for him at any time, but an emotional melt down can affect them dramatically. And besides dealing with Sam’s emotions, his body parts that are so flexible and soft are also hard to contain. They might just squirt out when you least expect it! Hello, straight lines!
With all the challenges Sam presents, I still love riding him. Those times when everything comes together, it’s magic and so fun! And since I played it safe with Stretch the previous year, I really wanted to ride Sam in the 2016 Top Hand. I knew it was probably my last opportunity to show him. At eighteen, another year, he might not be able to handle the demands of the training, traveling, showing, and so on. So in November of last year, just like I am doing this year, I made a plan to get Sam ready for Top Hand 2016.
Sam and I worked all summer on Challenge W,J,L Test #2 (which I have affectionately nicknamed “the test from hell”). For the record, I had no experience riding poles prior to Top Hand 2015 nor did my horses seem to have any natural ability in that area. I can look on that as a blessing now but during the steep learning curve, not so much. Not feeling overly confident in my abilities, I wanted to really work on the bow tie, so I rode both Sam and Stretch over the summer, trying to get it down for myself.
It was now August and time to compete at the Far West CD Show. I really wanted to do well and nail this test. Because we were taking our interns to the Far West show and I had plenty of help, I came up with the bright idea to enter both horses in the Far West show. I would ride Sam and Stretch on the challenge court in 4 tests each day for all 3 days until we got it right! At this time, I refer you to the first paragraph of this blog, in which I state I have no concept of needed time or energy for a task. To add a little more insight, I am a former Marine which sometimes gives me the attitude that if a task is not incredibly hard or does not require self-sacrifice, it might not be worth my time. I know, not that beneficial. And it wasn’t beneficial for this decision. My plan didn’t go quite as planned.
Taking two horses and riding all the tests in the challenge court was a horrible idea. First, we had some adjusting to do because the poles were set differently than I had practiced. This would not be a big deal for a seasoned rider who had done a lot of pole work or for a seasoned horse. But for my two horses and me, it really wreaked havoc on our confidence. Even Stretch started to complain and Sam didn’t seem to pick up his feet at all. He was knocking poles all over the place. Maybe he was tired? Maybe it was just me being off? I don’t know. All I knew for sure was I had to change course before the next Gathering. I needed a new plan and I needed to help my horses be successful. Plus, I needed to do this in about a four week time period. That’s all the time I had before Finals. Stress! Stress! Stress!
So I went home, feeling a bit defeated. I thought about what went wrong and why. I called my mentors Eitan and Lyn to see what advice they had to give me. I had already planned to only take Sam to the Finals so Stretch could rest and all my focus could be on Sam. My new plan for Sam included taking him backward in his pole training; breaking it down and giving him baby steps to build his confidence back up. At the Finals, I planned on only riding in the open court tests, trying to stay away from any test that resembled Challenge W, J, L #2. Plus, I added another tough test for Sam. I wanted to become a Level 3 CD Clinician. This required me to ride open court W,J,L #5. So for both of our sakes and considering my past mistake, I didn’t want to go onto the court and have to ask Sam for 110% every single time. I really wanted to be able to build his confidence by doing some simpler tests to help him relax and feel successful and also to do tests that helped Sam with his weaknesses. Because of Sam’s inconsistency in gaits and some of my own errors, our walk/jog test scores had averaged in the lower-to-mid 70’s. So I felt all right about adding a couple of walk/ jog tests, to give him some recovery time and not over-stress either of us. Thankfully, this plan seemed to be right for Sam.
Looking back on Finals, I feel Sam did as well as I could have ever expected him to do. We had a few hick-ups, but overall, I feel I had the right plan for Sam and we executed it well without either of us losing our confidence. We both stayed on top of our game until I messed up my last test of the weekend. Doesn’t it make you mad when your horse is so there for you and you’re the one that has the brain lapse? Grrrrrrr!
Sam and I earned many awards at the Finals, including the Overall Highpoint Saddle, which was a huge surprise! It wasn’t even on my radar screen! I’m very grateful for all the awards but my goals were to do my best to get us to the Top Hand Finals and to score a 74% or above on the Level #3 Clinician requirement test. I’m so excited that we achieved both of those goals! Yay, Sam! Besides winning the beautiful awards and achieving my personal goals, there were a few other wins that meant just as much, or more, to me.
First was when Jennifer Purcell rode Sam in the Top Hand exchange. Like I said, Sam is not easy to ride or manage. I was so proud of both of them! Jennifer rode Sam so well and Sam held it together nicely for her. Another win I was very excited about was when Sam and I rode our bow tie in competition as well as we rode it at home. We had worked so hard on that! I got two rewards from that one; I scored a 10 on one bow tie and Eitan complimented us on our ride. He was sitting on the edge of the court during Top Hand and after I finished my test he told me, “It’s about time.” Now that doesn’t seem like much of a compliment, but I know for sure Eitan roots for all of us and likes to see us all do well! Plus, I’ve been coached in many areas of my life, and sometimes that’s as good as it gets from our coaches that have high expectations and want us to reach the next level.
Lastly, beyond any award, what makes me feel the most fulfilled is achieving those things our team at MM Training has chosen to be our “ultimate win.” In our ultimate win, we receive no trophies, buckles or ribbons but we have peace of mind and a joyful heart. To achieve our “ultimate win,” we consider these questions while planning our trips and then we ask ourselves how we did on the way home: Did we honor God? Is our team closer for this experience? Did we learn and grow? When I can say yes to those three things, that is where the good stuff is for me! 
In closing, my boy, Sam, is now officially retired. He has earned it! And Stretch, well…he is retired from me. He is enjoying his new job as a lesson horse. As for me, I am excited to be starting a new guy for the 2017 show season. His name is Cash and I believe he is the perfect combination of Stretch and Sam. And for you all, my Cowboy Dressage family, I hope this blog can be useful for you while you are planning your 2017 calendar. I pray you all have an amazing holiday season and I can’t wait to see everyone in the New Year. And if you haven’t already, please consider what your “ultimate win” is. It’s so much sweeter than any external reward you will ever receive!