DIFD Horses

Old man Willie got to come out and play while teaching one of our students about ground handling and a little showmanship. I think he had fun other then dealing with the flies. Such a sweet old man.

Kenzie doing some ground work with training horse Duke. She absolutely loves putting in the time and seeing a horses ground manners change.

Introducing Luna to her new home for the next couple months. Safe to say she seemed to settle in nicely, not caught on video is her meeting her next door neighbors and heading over to eat from their shared hay bale.

Unloading part 2. I wasn’t sure if she was going to shoot out of the trailer stall with how tense she was so I took some precautions. She blew me away with how settled she unloaded.

Unloading her part one she was fantastic the whole ride home, but you could definitely see she was a bit tense when we opened the door of the trailer. She let me get her lead rope on without a big blow up though.

So, I want to take a minute and talk about our mental game as competitors or as riders in general. We put a lot of stress on competing and winning, making sure our horses are fed properly, exercised, watered, and just cared for. We are responsible for the well being of an athlete and that can take a lot out of a person. Beyond that what happens when something goes wrong. For instance when our horses slip and fall. This has been on my mind lately for a few reasons. One big one being the Autumn and her fall, but also mine and Trouble’s fall during the WSCA championship show. As you may know Trubs is 25 and I’m very blessed to still be running him at the level I do. As a result of this I tend to bubble wrap him. So when we came down during our safety circle after jumping figure 8 I was worried, I still worry. The video I chose to post along with this is proof to me that I’ve got work to do on my mental game when it comes to running Trouble. We knocked our first can because the only thing I could think coming in is ‘What if he slips?’ All the possibilities of him getting hurt running through my head at once causing me to loose focus on what’s important, helping him run the best pattern he can run. I failed him because my mental game is still off while riding him. I’m not saying I know everything and that you always have to just let things go, all I’m trying to say is that it’s important to remember that in the moment you need to be present. Not thinking of past runs, or the possibility of future falls. Just riding in the moment and remembering that your partner isn’t thinking of ‘that one time when’. They are just focused on doing the job you have asked them to do. Just be present with them.

Went up to BigFork for Autumn’s benefit run. Our first open didn’t go great, but we pulled together for our second open and got 1st in the 3D. What an awesome way to raise money for Autumn, she is such a strong young woman, prayers are with her and her family as she continues on with her recovery.

Saturday

Friday

Old man trouble had fun playing in the dirt tonight. I don’t know if this horse will ever slow himself down, but I’m definitely more cautious in the way I ride him. He still loves his job though, so why take that away from him.

Jockey error and over riding caused us to hit our first. The jockey (me) trying to save our first set us up horrible for our second. But that’s how the game is played sometimes. Love the try in this mare even when things are going wrong. I had a trainer one time tell me ‘the horse doesn’t know that they knocked a barrel’. She certainly didn’t know.

Troubles run was, well I’m not sure what to call it. It both was good and not at the same time. There are some thing is I love about it and some things I don’t. But I can say he was feeling amazing. My knee after rubbing that barrel however is not. I truly appreciate every time I get to swing a leg over my trusty old man. I count him a million times when counting my blessings. Can’t wait for summer to be here.

A bit of tough luck today for the slack run. I was just letting Shotzee do her thing and we started on the wrong lead. Fumbling around first we set up wrong for second and knocked, but on the positive side I know what we need to work at. So proud of this little mare she handled this weekend with grace and just a bit of sass. Next year we’ll make that performance. There’s quite a bit of work ahead of us though.

Troubles run from today. It would have been so much better if I could get my crap together and ride him the way he deserves. But tomorrow is a new day and I’m actually really happy with his run today.

Shotzee’s run from today. You can’t see it, but she was a little nervous. The warm up pen worries her a little bit. Overall I’m happy with how she preformed.

Still have some work to do with letting me have his feet, but I got all 4 picked out without needing a halter. He was a little more nervous about his blind side (side away from camera) but he let me. A year ago he would have kicked me for trying this. Love my little mustang!!!

Aztec had a lesson today. I swear this boy puts up with a lot. This is minus his bronc session when I was putting weight in the stirrup with my foot. Seriously though he handles all of this way better then I expect him to. My boy is learning to be a big horse. My amazing Techalicious!!