|
August 2007 • VOLUME 24 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
The search for improvement, the dream of riding really well, the contrast between me and the Masters….. Do you sometimes/often feel like giving it all up and keeping rabbits instead? Do you sometimes dismount and think, sorry horse, you must have hated every minute of that. Do you sometimes think you are a fool to even imagine you will ever be able to ride decently and reasonably elegantly let alone at the level of Philippe Karl, or Manolo Mendez, or Anja Beran, or whoever happens to light your HeartFire? Do you sometimes watch a person who’s been riding at least 50 years less than you and see them ‘getting’ something that’s been eluding you forever or for the past three days or whatever? These questions go on and on, I bet everyone reading this could add a fair few!!! However I think there is a basic problem here that most of us grapple with - we tend to see perfectly valid reasons for some things as being mere ‘excuses’, and while we have to guard always against that danger, it might be useful to keep the balance and remember to (or even learn to…) distinguish reasons from excuses. Let me explain. I don’t pretend that what follows is a Damascus revelation, the invention of the wheel, or what the Italians describe as the discovery of hot water….but I do think it is something I need to remind myself of more frequently, like every day. I would say that, in a way, I do take my riding seriously in the sense that I want my horse and me to be as in harmony as possible; I want him to enjoy what we do and to feel that I am with him, not against him, in everything we share. I don’t compete, but I think it would be the same if I did. But I also enjoy riding, I look forward to it, I have fun, I feel better for it and I glow after a good ride, I really glow inside as I stand with my lovely horse letting him have his half hour of good green grass or watch him getting muddy having a great roll in the paddock and a buck and a gallop as he celebrates his free time…… so as I stood with him today and watched which blades of grass and which leaves he seemed to like and which ones he wasn’t interested in (I sometimes guess wrong, he often surprises me…) I mused, and here are my musings for what they are worth…
|
|||||||
|
