Meet Our Guest Blogger
Hi I’m Amy, IG handle: @amyrose__9! I’m a former aspiring professional equestrian turned adult amateur. I now spend my days as a physician assistant treating patients by day and running to the barn to ride! After turning 30 years old this past year, I was finally able to buy my first horse after 15 years of leasing some incredible horses to help me move up the levels.
I was originally an equitation die hard and decided to open up a new chapter in my riding career by trying my hand in all three rings – competing in the jumpers for the first time in my 20 years of riding!
One day, I hope I’m able to split my time doing my career part time and really taking my equestrian passion to the next level. I love watching YouTubers and content creators share their worlds and their ups and downs navigating the equestrian lifestyle.
Where to Begin?
There are many days I come to the barn, swing my leg over and then say… now what? When you were a kid siting in class, the teacher told you to open to page 24, wrote the lesson plan on the board and got down to business. Similarly, showing up to my lessons each week – there’s usually a general theme of the lesson or the theme develops as I begin to struggle with something. Never ONCE have I ever shown up to a lesson with an empty ring and a simple “just walk trot and canter around and see what happens”. So why do our brains suddenly go blank when we put a foot in the stirrup, and we are left to our own devices? Well frankly, I don’t really know shock horror, but I do have a quick list of my “go-to’s” for when this happens!
Homework
Step 1. Ask! For those of you in formal instruction, I’m sure your trainer has a long list of things you need to work on. We do our best to absorb as much as we can during our instructional time, and why not take that a step further. I think a simple “what can I work on this week” is a great place to start to give you some ideas to keep yourself busy for the days in between lessons. Your trainer is the one person on the ground that sees the things that you don’t. Chances are they’ll give you some good advice and ideas for how to work on those skills.
Just like in school, “homework” helps us review what we learn in lessons, put it into practice, and commit it to memory. So simply just ask for homework at the end of your lesson to give you a lesson plan while riding solo!
Make a Date
What about study groups? The saying goes two heads think better than one, so why not use the same methodology for your free time in the saddle. Make a date! Text a friend and set up a date to ride together! Having a buddy to ride with is not only enjoyable, but you may pick up a few tricks and tips by watching them go around the ring. Ask them what they are working on or talk to them about what you’re struggling with.
Setting a date and time with a riding buddy keeps you accountable and may open up your eyes to what you could be doing differently. For example, are you wrapping up your ride after 20 minutes (with a few walk breaks) when your buddy has only just started cantering? Maybe you need to work on your endurance because watching your friend trot for 10 minutes straight looked EXHAUSTING and they’re barely breaking a sweat.
Get Inspired
There’s people all over the world posting digital content by the second to multiple platforms. Just
recently, I watched a young professional use a box of 9-foot rails to work on lead changes with her young horse. It gave me the idea to set up the same box in our indoor arena at home. A few bystanders watched me go through the “doom trap” and decided to take a test spin. There are so many resources out there to get some inspiration and give you ideas for fun exercises.
I love a good pole work session, and many times I can scroll through Instagram and find someone doing the same in 4K. Believe it or not, there is an app for that – including polework Patterns and equi-pole to name two of many. You can log onto usef.org and visit their learning center or subscribe to Equestrian Masterclasses brought to you (and many) by Noelle Floyd. Truly when all else fails – a simple search on YouTube may inspire you!
Make the Best Use of Your Time
Something I have adopted recently is to keep an eye on the time. Often, I found myself tracking a certain direction or staying in a certain gait for a better chunk of my ride. It could simply be due to lack of awareness, or because I am more comfortable on my horse in the canter versus the trot, or track right is less work than track left. I came up with a plan to set multiple 5-minute timers on my watch. Pick a time interval and have a timer sound or vibrate (for all you tech savvy folks) to let you know when 5 minutes has passed! This is your cue to change it up. Switch gears, switch directions, just make a change!
Often times we spend more time doing the things that we will be successful at and less time doing the things we think we are going to struggle with. By keeping an eye on the time, not only do we allow our horses a mental break and enrich their time with us with change, it tends to help us get down to business and have our riding be efficient. This allows us more time to do other things – like finally clean our tack trunks.
Plan to Not Be Productive
What now? Yes. I try to have a scheduled mental health day for myself at least once a week. If not a day, an afternoon… sometimes maybe just an hour. I think having a scheduled mental health day in the saddle is important for riders and horses! It’s ok to take a day not to work on that pesky left to right lead change, your piano hands, or conquering the scary back left corner of the indoor. Making a plan to give your horse a day to have a relaxing hack or a trail ride may be just the type of productivity you both need!
Having a scheduled light day helps our horses recover from hard work and allows them to practice
relaxation while in the tack. Just like people, “all work and no play make Jack a dull boy”.
Having this day scheduled makes sure you don’t push your horse too much, but also ensures that you’re not setting yourself up for a tough jump lesson in 30 degrees when your horse has had three “mental health days” in a row.
The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. I remind myself daily that it never hurts to have a plan, but very often (especially with horses) plans change. Your green horse has now decided he can’t possibly ride in the field alone when he was fine yesterday. Or your day of poles has been squashed because it’s raining and there’s about 5000 lead line lessons happening in the indoor.
Make a plan, a plan to change your plan, and a plan to have no plan! No time in the saddle is ever
wasted, so make every minute count!
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