Optimists

“Equestrians must be the most optimistic people in the world. Every time we enter the competition arena, we have a chance to achieve perfection. But we so rarely actually do it.  At least we seldom think we do. There’s always some mistake, some reason to beat ourselves up. But we keep coming back to try. 

There’s certainly a science to it. All the technical stuff we work on day in and day out. How they say it takes a lot of work to make it look so easy. But there’s magic too. The fact is I’ve spent all this time and effort to create perfection and yet I’m still so surprised when everything falls into place. 

One minute I’m in the warm up area fighting for a jump and breathing dust. Then at the in gate surrounded by chatter and grumbling and laughter. Then through the gate and it’s like a curtain goes up, or drops, or something and it’s all gone. All the dust and chatter and grumbling. The real world just slips away. 

I pick up a canter and hopefully a good rhythm. One two one two. That experience of not carrying a rhythm but being carried by it. That’s when I know we’re about to do something good out there. But there’s always that chance it won’t go well and I have to be OK with that.

That’s horse showing for you. A million and one ways for things to go wrong, often in unfavorable conditions to boot. There were times my barn mates and I would just sit around asking “what the fuck is wrong with us?“ But then the pandemic happened and all of the sudden we couldn’t go horse showing anymore. That was even worse. So now we don’t complain so much.”