Slightly Misty

My ever constant goal is to keep pushing the boundaries of my comfort level without experiencing overwhelming anxiety.

Seeing as I am now fully weaned off anti-anxiety drugs as of two months ago more or less, it's a slow process.

I was never an anxious rider in the past, but anxiety from my regular academic life crossed over and paralyzed me in ridiculous ways.

I became worried about cantering.  I didn't want to ride alone.  The list goes on.

These spidey senses can keep us alive, yes, but in the end, it was preventing me from any sort of progress.  Self:  Not that long ago, I could gallop bareback in the rain down a hill without a concern.  So anxiety sucks.

Sunday, there was a local schooling show.  It didn't have dressage or anything along those lines, but I thought I would go to show in a couple of halter classes, then a riding class or two.

I am proud of myself that I did hook up the truck and trailer with little difficulty.  Chili then decided she couldn't possibly load into the trailer.  It was dark and slightly misty.  It started to rain.  My husband was with and he'd probably rather have a root canal than come to a schooling show.  He also hates hauling horses with the truck and trailer since he's convinced we're going to die in some fashion.

I put the butt rope on Chili and then she hopped in.  There was disorganized chaos as typical at a schooling show.  The downside of this facility is that there isn't a lot of great parking, especially when it's wet and muddy.  Many people show out of their trailers, which is fine, but since it was raining, everyone was standing around in the warm up arena.

OK.

I ended up showing two classes of halter: novice horse halter and Arabian halter.  We ended up 2nd in Arabian halter behind a professional trainer and 3rd out of 22 horses in novice horse halter, which was nice.  We qualified for the championship class and ended up 5th in a class of well fitted, nice horses. 

Not bad considering Chili thinks halter is not her thing.  She usually spends most of her time sleeping or standing awkwardly with her ears back. 

Then it was the decision whether or not to stay for the riding classes.  Pros: cheap schooling opportunity.

Cons: Iffy footing, no place to warmup since there were 1047104 horses standing around, lack of lighting in the arena which made for some interesting scary corners, and a really crabby, wet husband.

So we packed up and went home.

But all in all, a good, slightly misty exercise in expanding boundaries.

I decided to keep this going and rode the Chili bareback last night.  She is not especially a fan, but I think that stems as she doesn't really like a lot of calf pressure.  Thighs are cool, but leg not so much.  Last night, we just played around with balancing my seat, asking her to move into the trot just from the seat, backing up, and some basic sidepassing over the pole both ways. 

A good exercise just to rebalance both of us, for sure.

Poor Chili had to also deal with dragging this pool noodle the other day.  She doesn't mind dragging something next to her, but behind her is a no-no still, and having something drug towards her front feet wasn't a fan favorite.

Got off, reinforced the points in hand, then got back on and baby steps.  We're getting there.  :)