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How to enjoy your horse

Putting your mind to it
In the pipeline is a blog about all of the amazing things we got up to in September, including BRC Quadrille, Blenheim Horse Trials demos and Beau, Sardra and Seamus being formally thanked for their participation in the Northampton town carnival parade.  Whilst i work on that though, I really felt I had to share my thoughts about how attitude and mindset really is everything in riding - and in general life

Where should we focus?
It's a dog eat dog world out there, and in between holding down careers, caring for families, trying to maintain a social life, shopping, cleaning and just looking after our horses, we sometimes lose sight of why we have horses - and that is to have fun!

We all start our lifelong passion with horses in different ways.  I was born with it even though my family was not horsey.  Some people take up riding later in life.  For some their dream is to have a pony and as soon as they have their own job they make it come true.  As well, many people stop riding for years, for various reasons, and then realise later it's all they want to do.  This level of passion exists because we enjoy riding, we enjoy being round our horses, we enjoy watching horses and we enjoy the company of other horsey people

As a kid i loved nothing more than the adrenaline rush brought on by riding hell for leather across country, regularly having the fastest time in competitions on a welsh pony (they really can run if they want to).  After a 15 year break, as a grown-up i find just getting on to be something of a challenge some days, so my cross-country days are probably over, but there are plenty of other activities that will give me the same rush.  So how did i find out what those activities are?

Rider Confidence
A couple of years ago I attended a Rider Confidence course run by the Centre for Horseback Combat.  The focus of this course was on mindset and included group hypnotherapy as well as giving us strategies for dealing with situations if they do arise, such as how to fall off safely.  We were taught to imagine everything going right, and focus on the outcomes we wanted so we could achieve them.  If you focus on what could go wrong, it is pretty much guaranteed to happen!  This course was the start of my journey into trying to understand how my own mind works in relation to riding.  And it is no exaggeration to say it got me back on a horse.

Happiness and our brains 
I found this blog by Christopher Bergland to prove my completely un-academic theories:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201211/the-neurochemicals-happiness

I have come to know all of the above gradually over my life, and now my sole aim in my free time is to increase the level of enjoyment i can have with Beau.  I understand that for me to have fun, he has to be having fun too.  Unfortunately for him, his greatest joy is galloping and jumping over fences, but at 21 and with a wet drip rider, we tend to do mostly dressage.  How can dressage possibly be fun I hear you cry?  Well, believe me it can, because it challenges you and makes the small victories so enjoyable.

So how do we have fun?
We do what we enjoy.  Each year, with my amazing Cherwell Valley team mates, we enter the BRC Quadrille Qualifier.  We are not dressage divas and we do everything ourselves.  It takes the whole year to come up with a theme, create costumes, build the floorplan and mix the music, and every second of that is fun (even when we all fall out!)

Occasionally I take to riding aside too, and it's challenging to do well and therefore very rewarding.  Beau has taken to it very well so we hack sideways, we have done dressage competitions sideways and we have even shown (that was a little too staid for me though, lots of standing around and then the challenge of waking Beau up again for the individual show without making him too cross)

In between times we attempt dressage to music.  The distraction of the music and having to concentrate to be at the right pace at the right time makes it fun.  I had a very sage piece of advise, which was to not have a floorplan but to wing it every time.  Now that is fun!  

Winning at life?
In all of the above, we are not setting the world alight.  I have yet to score over 70% even at prelim (though we have at novice, go figure) even though we can do all of the Elementary moves pretty well at home.  The team does not win at quadrille, I don't often come home with a ribbon and it's a hard slog to qualify for any championships.  But the journey is what's fun!  If i can come out of the arena feeling as though I had 3 strides of OMG Trot, or a smooth downwards transition, I'm happy.  On occasion i have had an appalling score, and some mean comments from judges, but have still been on top of the world because I know we have done well and our partnership has felt right in the test.  That's the key and all I ask

You may think I mustn't be naturally competitive.  That could not be further from the truth!  I really really want to win every time i go out, but I have learned that attitude actually sucks the fun from the competition.  It's all in the mind set and that's what helps me to be able to hold down a difficult job in the week, and still focus on what's key for my own mental wellbeing at weekends.

Learning about fun is FUN!
I wrote this blog : https://beaubayou.blogspot.com/2017/07/june-2017-its-all-about-socks.html last year having attended a fantastic Centaur Biomechanics seminar at Moulton College.  One of the key speakers was sports psychologist Charlie Unwin whose methods make perfect sense.  Luckily my coaches Alison Kenward and James Burtwell agree!  Alison in particular is helping enormously in changing my mindset and supporting all of the above whilst teaching me how to ride properly too!  

Beau appreciates all of this, which means I appreciate Beau and my happy hormones can flow freely...


...whatever we get up to 

Much love

Tam and Beau

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