If you follow this blog you will know I am not able to ride due to a hip injury and having worn out my 20 year old replaced right hip. Since riding is a huge part of my life not being able to ride has brought up some interesting things in my psyche.
There are lots of things you can do with a horse besides riding. I am so lucky to have two highly qualified professionals ride my Biasini while I am “off”. Monday to Friday I go to the barn and groom him and get him tacked up for either my coach Belinda Trussell or her assistant trainer Lynsey Rowan. Then I watch them ride. As I am watching I am well aware of how well they deal with Biasini’s idiosyncrasies. Biasini goes around the arena in an ideal frame and that in itself is not so easy to achieve. I know this because I have ridden him for eight years. Then when I see them performing test movements , like the zig zag from the Intermediare 1,that is when I know I am watching advanced professional riders.
But what do I miss the most since I still have lots of contact with Biasini especially after he is ridden when I give him another grooming and do his carrot stretches with him, get his stable blanket on and put him back into his stall. What I miss is the challenge of being in a program of learning and working toward new goals. I enjoy preparing for a show season and working on the test movements. I actually enjoy working hard . And I miss being in a program and having goals to work toward. But is that what I miss most?
Here is a short video that Lynsey took when she had Biasini and her dog Murphy out on the snowy trails in the forest.
If something is stressing me in my life I take Biasini out on a forest trail ride and I can feel the stress lifting away from me with every stride he takes. If I am not able to do that I have found it tough to find anything else that succeeds so well in dissipating stress. There is always stress in life. I’m not unusual in suffering from stress from time to time. But since I am not able to ride I am much more aware of it. So I would have to say that my forest trail rides are the thing I miss most.
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