We all try our best to take super care of our horses. We manage their feed, their show schedules, they get massages, new shoes, visits with the chiropractor and vet. In short, they get the best of the best. We humans on the other hand often miss out on all of these luxuries, and often even the most basic healer known as sleep. Why is it that we as a society can’t seem to make our selves a priority without feeling some guilt? This is something we need to work on. But if you can’t do these important self-preserving things for you, do it for the athlete within you. I just heard someone say to me to ‘preserve the performance’ in relation to how to deal with circumstances around competition day.
World Cup Finals 2018 – My take away So I’ve just come back from our trip to Paris (I know you’re all hating me right now!), where we went to watch the World Cup Finals (WCF). Since I used to be pretty into dressage we didn’t just watch the Jumping Final but also took an interest in the Dressage Final. And, I’m glad we did, because I had a huge take away from watching the mental aspect this year in particular. I’ll set the stage: Isabell Werth (from Germany) has around 40 medals from major championships to her name, and is the reigning WCF champion from 2017 (we watched that one too in Omaha). She clearly has a lot of experience to draw from. Laura Graves (American) is a young up and coming
Last week was my first FEI show and I’m thrilled to say we came out better than we went in! Besides having an amazing horse (obvs) we also had super courses and fantastic weather. I really couldn’t have been set up better for a great week. Something that I don’t talk about much is depression. I work very hard on staying positive, and trying to recognize when I’m down, when my circumstances don’t add up to the feelings I’m feeling. I know we all say to speak out about depression but in my experience a couple things happen: being misunderstood and the fear of being misunderstood. I heard MSNBC news anchor Rachael Maddow say once in an interview that her feelings are a symptom of her depression
