Laura Crum posted about worrying. I commented and liked what I wrote so I thought I'd post it here. This is because it was so awesome the first time and because I am lazy.
I'm not really much of a worrier at all. From my perspective bad things just sometimes happen. Sometimes even if you played it completely safe you still wind up hurt. So I just live life and do what makes me happy and not worry too much because worrying is such a downer to me. That doen't mean I take uncalculated risks. I just think there is a differnece between observing unsafe situations and behaviours and creating "what if..." worst case scenarios in my head. In recognozing situations that may be unsafe you can logically work preventatively or reactively to imporve the situation. In the latter you may act preventatively and avoid the dangerous situation but you also end up stressing. And especially working with horses this is not a good side effect. Horses pick up on that and I think a stressed rider puts a horse on alert and increases the chanes of unpredictablilies.
So when I start to worry I fist ask myself why. I figure what it is about a given situation that is causing that fear. After I pinpoint where my anxiety is coming from I evaluate whether it is legitimate/likely. If it isn't and I'm being crazy I let it go and laugh at myself. If I do have true cause for concern I look at my options. Can I leave? Do I want to? How can I be as safe as posssible? Is it worth it? From here I can usually figure out what I want to do and how to do it safely. It sounds complicated and new-agey self-help-ish but it takes seconds and saves me loads of stress. Fear is important. It kept every single one of your ancestors alive in order to create you. It shouldn't be discounted but it shouldn't keep you from having fun either.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
First Post
Stormy is a 4 y/o buckskin Connemara cross. He's approximately 15 hh and unbroke. Stormy is my first horse. This is the most awesome thing in the history of my life. I bought him this past July but really this whole story starts a long time ago.
So I was 8. Not a good age on me. I was chubby, shy and slightly unfortunate looking with crooked teeth (like need to remortgage the house and get an orthodontist on retainer crooked). Like many parents in need of activities for a small child on summer vacation mine sent me to horse camp. I rode a pony called peanut, or pumpkin or penny or one of those typical pony names. He was black, and shinny, and beautiful. I was in love. That night my parents were patient through hours of "Peanut likes carrots", "to go right you pull this string, I think its called rains", "Peanut has frogs on his feet", "Will you buy me a pony?" (Actually they endured that last one for years). That week at horse camp was probably the best of my young life. From then on my number one priority was to learn as much about horses as possible and become the best rider ever. Both things I am still working on and I am not likely to actually ever achieve either. So I took lessons, worked on horse farms, trained numerous green horses, rode some problem ponies and learned a little about starting unbroke ones.
Stormy was born at the farm I work at. I don't really remember too much about him as a foal. The farm bred CConnemaras so it wasn't an usual occurrence to have a couple foals born each year. Horse ownership still seemed so far away I never imagined I would one day be able to afford a horse as nice as him anytime soon. I do remember that he was moderately easy to worm the first time, moderately difficult to lead and kind of awkward looking. He was one of those babies that grow in spurts. His hind end would shoot up a few inches followed by his front end a few months later. He never really looked balanced until he was rising 3.
I rode and started a whole bunch of his half siblings and even his full brother. I loved them all. I would recommend a Connemara to anyone. They are the best breed ever and will excel in any sport. They are the superheroes of the horse world. I was so lucky to have the opportunity to ride such quality ponies. My boss lamented selling him. She liked him and knew I did too. So we got to talking and next thing I knew I was buying a horse.
I really wasn't in the best position to buy a horse but I couldn't pass him up. So I just bit the bullet and now our fairy tale begins. Our first interaction after he became mine went like this:
So Connemaras have limited respect for standing structures. Like fences. I can tell you this because at work I spend a great deal of time catching escapees and nailing up broken down boards. I have come to accept this as an intrinsic part of their behaviour and the one and only drawback to the breed. So I am out nailing up broken down fence boards between two paddocks (A speciality of Connemaras. They don't like to escape onto roads or anything,that's too dangerous, but breaking into other horses paddocks displays their disdain at your ridiculously stupid attempt at containing them while staying out of traffic and ensuring they still cause maximum damage and chaos). So Stormy and friends have broken down some boards and escaped into the mares field beside them. After the shit show that is sorting ponies during feeding time I had boys on one side girls on the other. Now I begin nailing up boards. At which point all the ponies decide to come investigate what I'm up too. I'm sure other horse people can relate: if you were hammering something in an arena where students are having a lesson that would most likely scare the pants off those steady school mounts. Start wildly swinging a hammer in a field and everybody comes to stick their nose in the way. So the boards are not going up quickly. I have about 8 ponies milling around while I use my limited dexterity to try and hammer up these 3 broken boards and avoid hitting my own fingers. I'm staring to lose my temper. Don't the jerks start a horse fight right over top of my head as I bend over to pick up a nail. So instead I pick up a handful of loose dirt and huck it at the nearest fuzzy face barreling towards me. That fuzzy face belongs to my newly acquired dream horse and the dirt hits him in the chest. This stops him. His friends stop too. I yell a few expletives and swing my arms around like a crazy, still holding the hammer. They realize I am unbalanced and Stormy is the first to turn tail and go down the fence line to munch some hay. In my first day of horse ownership all I managed to do was throw dirt at my horse like a child throwing a temper tantrum and call him mean names. Fairy tale indeed.
So I was 8. Not a good age on me. I was chubby, shy and slightly unfortunate looking with crooked teeth (like need to remortgage the house and get an orthodontist on retainer crooked). Like many parents in need of activities for a small child on summer vacation mine sent me to horse camp. I rode a pony called peanut, or pumpkin or penny or one of those typical pony names. He was black, and shinny, and beautiful. I was in love. That night my parents were patient through hours of "Peanut likes carrots", "to go right you pull this string, I think its called rains", "Peanut has frogs on his feet", "Will you buy me a pony?" (Actually they endured that last one for years). That week at horse camp was probably the best of my young life. From then on my number one priority was to learn as much about horses as possible and become the best rider ever. Both things I am still working on and I am not likely to actually ever achieve either. So I took lessons, worked on horse farms, trained numerous green horses, rode some problem ponies and learned a little about starting unbroke ones.
Stormy was born at the farm I work at. I don't really remember too much about him as a foal. The farm bred CConnemaras so it wasn't an usual occurrence to have a couple foals born each year. Horse ownership still seemed so far away I never imagined I would one day be able to afford a horse as nice as him anytime soon. I do remember that he was moderately easy to worm the first time, moderately difficult to lead and kind of awkward looking. He was one of those babies that grow in spurts. His hind end would shoot up a few inches followed by his front end a few months later. He never really looked balanced until he was rising 3.
I rode and started a whole bunch of his half siblings and even his full brother. I loved them all. I would recommend a Connemara to anyone. They are the best breed ever and will excel in any sport. They are the superheroes of the horse world. I was so lucky to have the opportunity to ride such quality ponies. My boss lamented selling him. She liked him and knew I did too. So we got to talking and next thing I knew I was buying a horse.
I really wasn't in the best position to buy a horse but I couldn't pass him up. So I just bit the bullet and now our fairy tale begins. Our first interaction after he became mine went like this:
So Connemaras have limited respect for standing structures. Like fences. I can tell you this because at work I spend a great deal of time catching escapees and nailing up broken down boards. I have come to accept this as an intrinsic part of their behaviour and the one and only drawback to the breed. So I am out nailing up broken down fence boards between two paddocks (A speciality of Connemaras. They don't like to escape onto roads or anything,that's too dangerous, but breaking into other horses paddocks displays their disdain at your ridiculously stupid attempt at containing them while staying out of traffic and ensuring they still cause maximum damage and chaos). So Stormy and friends have broken down some boards and escaped into the mares field beside them. After the shit show that is sorting ponies during feeding time I had boys on one side girls on the other. Now I begin nailing up boards. At which point all the ponies decide to come investigate what I'm up too. I'm sure other horse people can relate: if you were hammering something in an arena where students are having a lesson that would most likely scare the pants off those steady school mounts. Start wildly swinging a hammer in a field and everybody comes to stick their nose in the way. So the boards are not going up quickly. I have about 8 ponies milling around while I use my limited dexterity to try and hammer up these 3 broken boards and avoid hitting my own fingers. I'm staring to lose my temper. Don't the jerks start a horse fight right over top of my head as I bend over to pick up a nail. So instead I pick up a handful of loose dirt and huck it at the nearest fuzzy face barreling towards me. That fuzzy face belongs to my newly acquired dream horse and the dirt hits him in the chest. This stops him. His friends stop too. I yell a few expletives and swing my arms around like a crazy, still holding the hammer. They realize I am unbalanced and Stormy is the first to turn tail and go down the fence line to munch some hay. In my first day of horse ownership all I managed to do was throw dirt at my horse like a child throwing a temper tantrum and call him mean names. Fairy tale indeed.
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