Aspirations

I've been going out of my way these days to watch the Equestrian sports in the Olympics.  Obviously, I find myself the most interested in those sports than any of the other Summer sports.  As any good Canadian, I also feel fairly invested in how our country is doing, and I have to say that it has not been the easiest road for them so far.  Besides the death of Hickstead last year, the last week or so has been pretty difficult for Team Canada.  They were eliminated in Dressage because of a spooky horse (which I can totally understand!), one of our team members had a nasty fall during Eventing, and then Tiffany Foster's horse was eliminated from dressage for a little inflammation in its leg.  All very heartbreaking, especially considering the work that goes into this sport just like any other.  In fact, I recently had a friend from law school tell me that  she used to believe that "the horse does all the work" in equestrian sports, but after meeting me, she has quickly corrected anyone who even thinks that.

Horseback riding is hard.  It is a lot of work.  The muscles in my arms and legs after getting Walker are unreal.  I'm not strong by any means, but simply the constant work involved has improved my strength astronomically.

Watching the Olympics has really made me want to start thinking about disciplines.  I have no wild aspirations of ever going to the Olympics or ever even competing at a high level.  In fact, I'm not even so sure I will be much of a horse shower over the years.  I'm pretty busy in other aspects of my life and so far showing has been a lot of stress.

That being said, I feel like I need to pick a discipline.  While it's obviously true that it doesn't matter what kind of saddle you throw on the back of your horse, it's also true that there will always be disciplines that your horse will never really excel at.  For instance, Walker can jump.  Can he jump more than 2 feet?  Probably not, nor will he probably ever be much of a jumper.  Walker is a Quarter Horse and he was trained as a Western Pleasure horse.  I still ride him English because I want to practice my balance and try new things, but he still jogs instead of trots and he drops his head so low that I usually end up holding my much shorter English reins at the very end while he sniffs the ground.

Yet, ever since starting riding again, I've been interested in jumping.  When I was younger and rode around home, everyone rode Western.  I probably didn't even know about English until I got older because it simply wasn't an option.  When I started riding again in the city where I go to university, English was the most popular discipline.  I felt most comfortable in a Western saddle (and still do), but I started to think that jumping was where my heart lied.

Walker is not a jumper.  Never will be.  And after having him for only a short time, I can honestly say that I know when certain things stress him out.  I am almost positive that jumping will stress him out, but perhaps we will still try it someday (when I get a better handle on things).  He'll never do more than a few crossrails, but maybe when I move to the city where I'm going to be articling, I will be able to jump another horse in my lessons and keep Walker focused on being the Western Pleasure horse that he enjoys being.  As far as I'm concerned, I don't even know if I'm going to like jumping, and I can easily see me jumping my first crossrail on Walker and happily exclaiming, "Well I'll never do that again."  For now I'm just happy that I have a happy, healthy horse - even if he is a lot of trouble most days!