I’m terribly careful with my horses and their schedules. I’m a little bit of a nut about making sure they get down time, not just for their bodies, but also for their brains. They’re all individuals, of course, and some can handle more shows and more work than others. But in my time with Ella I’ve learned that while she’s a good girl and she’ll work hard for me, she’s at her best when she shows about once a month, and also only for a few months at a time.
I’ve also learned that she’s a nuisance in her down time—she stays polite for about five days, and then gets antsy, romping around in turnout, biting my staff, and then terribly lazy to ride. Average time I give her off? Two to three weeks. (That’s a lot of biting.)
But it’s worth it, because she’s so much better after her down time. She’s fresher through her body and looser through her back, but mostly she’s fresher in her mind. Ella’s at her best when she’s feisty.
What I’ve been less good about in years past is minding my own down time. I love my work, truly. I love the international level horses and my FEI riders and working on the upper level work just as much as I love my beginners, my chubby ponies and my old schoolmasters. I love the CDIs like I love the schooling shows, and I love teaching clinics near and far.
But with two prongs to my training program—the high performance show season in Florida and beyond in the wintertime and late fall, and the national track my clients follow, from the spring and summer shows and then the fall USDF championships—it means there’s a lot of work, and not a lot of time for a break. Add in the clinics I teach (on the list for next year: Saskatchewan, and possibly Hawaii. My job is so cool.) and I end up on the road a whole lot.
Last year I really spectacularly burned out. By the time I got to Florida I was SO fried, and I really didn’t feel like I did a great job of tempering my headspace such that I was the best competitor I could be. So this year, I wanted to try something different.
Just like Ella, I tend to bite if left to my own devices for too long. But I joined my two best friends and their husbands (and one very charming tornado trapped in a 1-year-old child) for a weekend of “glamping,” for lack of a better term—a weekend of hiking, staying overnight in one of the delightful Hot Tub Heaven Cabins (we HIGHLY recommend), eating everything that would hold still long enough to make it into my mouth, soaking my hiking-weary bones in the hot tub, crashing, and doing it all again the next day.
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It was fantastic, refreshing, and FUN, in a way that had very little to do with horses, though admittedly my two best friends are also riders, so horses were on the table for discussion. I’m still me; I can’t completely give them up.
Then this weekend, I played hookie for one more day to join my boyfriend in a tour of D.C. We had some ridiculously good meals, saw a very funny comedy show, stayed in a swanky hotel, and then toured D.C.’s great museum scene. Horses were nowhere to be found or discussed, and it was a breath of fresh air, a reminder of the other things I care about: my family (at least the one I’ve made, if not the one I was born into), travel, adventuring, and yes, eating lovely things.
It was just enough time to recharge. After I got home from my D.C. adventure, I found myself filled with energy, and was up till the wee hours booking flights for clinics, finalizing our team’s 2017 competition calendar, and herding cats for my saddle fitter sponsor’s next visit. And then I was teaching, plotting the next year for my show horses, seeing both the forest and the trees, and ready to take on the next 12 months.
I’m sure this is true for any small business owner, but it’s taken me years, even with a FANTASTIC support team, to really trust that the world will not end if I get out of the barn. And man, is my head a happier place for it!
But the break’s over.
I’ve got goals, and I’ve got plans, and I’ve got a spin class later that may or may not kill me, as penance for two consecutive weekends of culinary debauchery. Game on, 2017.
