Confidence to Ride vs. Confidence to Ride Dressage

I joked when I turned 50 that I had to give up my olympic dream.  Now I’m 51 and I’m over that. I’ve been watching the World Equestrian Games and I’m OK that I will never beat out Holland’s Edward Gal and his stunning horse Moorlands Totilas for the gold. 

Worse, I’ve lost all confidence that I will ever be ready to ride WELL.

This got me to thinking that there are two kinds of confidence when riding.  In the past I’ve gotten on some of the greenest of green horses and if you’ve read about my exploits with my horse Dody, you’ll know that he was no walk in the park.  Because of this, people see me as a confident rider but I don’t have the other critical ingredient to success – confidence in my riding skills.

Hans Peter Minderhoud hung on when Exquis Nadine jazzed up her test
© 2010 Nancy jaffer

This? No problem.
 

Edward Gal and Moorelands Totilas win gold at WEG 2010 with 85.708%

This?  Not so much.

It’s like clockwork. Every year as winter winds down and show season approaches I go through the same merry-go-round of emotions about showing. I know I drive my friends crazy.  In fact, they could just run a recording of what I said last year and the year before and the year before that. It starts around March with “I don’t think I’ll show this summer. I’m not really interested. I’m just going to ride”. To which they respond, “You say that every year. You’ll change your mind when you get closer to show season”.

The summer dressage show season is now over and I only made it to one show – the Pink Ribbon fundraiser for Cancer.  It’s a fun, no stress, non-competitive show for me and I really enjoyed it.  The key is that it’s not competitive, at least I didn’t treat it that way.  That’s good because I’m really very competitive and I don’t want to go to shows that are part of a “season”, where year-end standings matter.

I’m feeling better after my last post where I wrote that I was stuck at training level and some of my older riding blogger friends said they were too and it was ok.  I guess I just need to grow up and ride for the fun of it, good days or bad.

Thanks to Confessions of a Dressage Rider and Horseypants for the blog award

 This is my first post since March after a really busy summer.  I’ve been really remiss in thanking two of my rider blogger friends, Horseypants and Confessions of a Struggling dressage Rider for the Beautiful Blogger Award. I really appreciate their support for my blog.  They are both entertaining and informative and you should definitely check them out if you aren’t following already.

I have to tell you 7 things about myself that you may not know and pass this award onto other blogs.

1.  I have three dogs – two black standard poodles and a little white bichonpoo.  It’s kinda like living with an Oreo cookie.
2.  My friend has a driving pony and I’m learning how to drive.
3.  I’m allergic to ragweed and so is my little white dog.
4.  I live in Ontario.
5.  It makes me feel better to hear from Horseypants that she’s still at training level after five years.  Me Too!
6.  My horse Dody is a charmer to work around but can be a real booger to ride.
7.  My grandmother put me on my first horse when I was five.

I spend a lot of time each day reading blogs for work so I don’t get to spend much time with my horse reading. Here are blogs I like to read.

1. Horseypants
2. Confessions of a Struggling Dressage Rider
3. Feathertouchranch
4. Confident Horsmanship by Anne Gage
5. http://www.cavalliconnections.com/
6. Jane Savoie – Not a blog but I love my Motivation from Moshi!

Thanks again to Horsey Pants and Dressage Rider.

Janice