On one of the British Dressage pages, a young lady commented that she feels alone, she doesn't have the funds to do with her horse as she wishes, she's alone competing, she has no horse box and sometimes she feels like giving up.
Now, I appreciate I am incredibly lucky to have one of the most supportive un-horsey mums ever, who enabled me to get my horse box and yes I'm still paying the cost back monthly, BUT, for everything else. I get it.
I. Get. It and You. Are. Not. Alone
I don't know if it comes across in my blog, or on my Facebook page blog, but I often feel alone. A couple of years ago, I was in a relationship that meant I never went competing alone, I never went anywhere alone with the horses and whilst at the time that felt very nice, I also wanted to be independent. I wanted to do things by myself, and so when that relationship ended, I vowed that I would never be dependent on anyone again. I wanted to go competing when I wanted to. I wanted to be able to go off to the beach when I wanted to.I remember the first time I went out competing alone. It petrified the living daylights out of me. In fact I wrote a blog about it. I remember how scared I felt, how I wondered what I would do with no one to help me. I wondered if I would be okay. In reality I knew I would be fine, but I was scared of the unknown. And guess what? I was fine, but the feeling of being alone when I pulled up at the competition was alien. There was no one to tell me if we looked okay, or to help me remove Ceaser's boots, or tighten my girth, or take my jacket. There was no one to read my test or check the scoreboards.
Fast forward 2 years and now I love going competing on my own. I turn my CD player up as loud as possible on the way to the competition, I sing my heart out, I tack up in my own time, I have lunch when I want to have lunch, and I sit and hang around for as long as I want to. Its exhilarating, and its not scary. Its independence.In regards to funds, lets face it, none of us horse owners have the funds to go out and do as we wish. I can safely say that I speak for 99% of horse owners when I say that. I'm constantly looking at my bank and the 'outgoings', telling myself that my lack of house is fine, because my horses are tucked up in their stables in nice rugs, and warm.
I don't have an endless money tree that grows more notes as I pluck others off. I wish I did, but its reality - I simply don't.
This winter has hit me hard. Ziggy's vet bill is in excess of £3,000. People questioned why I was paying it, why I wasn't giving up and accepting the virus was the end of us. As if. We are these animals voice, and if I didn't fight to make him better who would? And not once at any time during his treatment did I question if I was doing the right thing, or question what else I could spend the money on. Because I accept that if my horse needs the vet, he gets one.So needless to say this winter has left me a little hard up for a few more months whilst I'm paying off the bill, but such is life and thats all part and parcel of it. The tears from that make my successes more enjoyable because I know I've worked for it, and I've worked bloody hard for it.
Things with Ziggy didn't come easy for a while. I've sat and cried over him so many times. Questioned why he doesn't trust me still, questioned why he's still spooky, questioned how one day he can go and produce a 72% dressage test and the next can't even work in an outline. But do you know what? Honestly, those small bits of success are what make me hungry for more. Life wouldn't be a journey if we weren't challenged every once in a while.
It would be lovely if we got on our horses everyday and the 70%+ dressage tests were relived, or we jumped a double clear every time we went show jumping. But where is the fun in that? How do we improve? How do we give ourselves something to work on? More importantly, how do we then have a goal to focus on?There's times when I've opened Horse Quest and wondered if I would be doing best by selling Ziggy and letting him go to someone that does have an endless money tree, or hours in their day to spend working on him. But each time I remember why I'm here, why I do what I do, and I remember that Ziggy is none the wiser if he's wearing Lidl's latest rug range, or Rambo's. He doesn't care. He's none the wiser if we don't enter that competition thats in my diary for that weekend. He doesn't care if we go showjumping or to the next BD event. All he cares about is being fed and watered.
I work full-time to be able to fund my horses and in some way I'm lucky I work from home so I can be a little flexible, but when I was full-time in an office I'll hold my hands up and say I couldn't cope. The long days, and long evenings exhausted me, and I took some time away from competing. But we do what we have to do and sometimes we have to make sacrifices.
I guess what I'm trying to say in my ramblings is that I think as riders, we put far too much pressure on ourselves to have the latest saddle, the latest rug range, to have as many outings on our BD record as Jo Bloggs down the road. In reality, amongst all of this I think we forget why we're here and how we ended up here. We all started this journey with a passion, a hobby, a love for horses, and sometimes I think we need reminding of it.Its going to get tough. Some days you'll dread getting on your horse; that's okay. Some days you'll want to finish work, put the horse to bed and go straight to bed yourself; that's okay. Some days you'll cancel going to the competition at the weekend because you need a weekend off; that's okay. Some days you'll admit defeat and need to ask for help; that's okay. But most importantly, some day it will all come together and some day you'll realise we're all in this together and none of us are truly alone in this journey. How can we possibly be alone when we have a horse on this journey with us?
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