The Horse Show Challenged...

There was just an article in some magazine... Horse Illustrated, I believe it was. This article posed the very important question- "Are You Horse Show Challenged?". It's all about doing as that old saying says- "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade."

I think that's rather passe', don't you? I'm a firm believer that if life hands you lemons, you can do any number of things. 1) You can make the aforementioned lemonade, 2) You can make a really ugly face, Or 3) You can get yourself a shaker of salt, a bottle of Jose', and kick back and enjoy the rest of the day- 'cause, Hey!, plans change, sometimes you lose, and there's always another horse show.

When things go wrong, (as they often do in the horse world), how you handle the situation- That is, how you conduct yourself, and what you manage to take away from it in a constructive fashion not only defines you, but makes you grow as a competitor.

For example, your Baby Green horse decides to be a little "flamboyant" during it's changes. So.. you didn't place. However, if you accentuate the positive instead, you realize that your "greenie" met all it's fences bravely and quietly. That gives you something to build upon, instead of being haunted by faulty changes. By not dwelling on the negative, it's a virtual guarantee that the next time, you'll have an even better performance. The other option- allowing yourself to focus on the negative only sticks you firmly in a rut.

Some of our more challenging moments that filter through to the surface of my mind are:
In a Western pleasure class, the 3YO filly that Kenn was riding literally got "T-Boned" and knocked into the wall of the arena and down on her knees. (C'mon people, this is WESTERN PLEASURE, not BUMPER CARS!) Fortunately, she picked herself right back up and loped off like a pro.

In a Sr Western Pleasure class (have you noticed a trend? maybe we should give up the pleasure thing.. I think the gods are trying to tell us something) A black cat came streaking out of the stands, and down the stairway. At the bottom it apparently suffered a critical brake malfunction, and crashed headlong into the arena wall, at the exact same spot our mare was jogging past. I'm not sure which was more startling- watching the cat attempt a suicidal kamikaze mission, or having a black cat nearly cross your path.

Bad things happen to good people. It's a fact of life. Grab that bottle of Cuervo. No matter how hard you work- dot all your "i"s and cross all your "t"s, sometimes lady luck rears her head and instead of giving you a kiss, she strikes you like a viper. So instead of worrying about flushed entry fees, reach out with both hands and grab ahold of some fun. That doesn't have to come in a bottle, (fun is what and where you make it) but depending on how bad your luck is running, it sure can help sometimes. This horse show stuff cost way too much not to be having fun.

Uh-0

I have an eye exam coming up tomorrow. It had occurred to me that it's been quite awhile since I'd had one, and lately I've been coming up with headaches when I try to read. I find myself dragging the laptop closer.. Well, you get the picture. Perhaps it's time.

Whilst lamenting this fact to the barn owner, Glenn, this morning, Glenn's son asked the innocent question, "You had a birthday recently didn't you?"

Bite me.

"No really, didn't you?"

So what? I recently celebrated the big 3-0. By my reckoning, that's just another birthday, sandwiched between 29 and 31.

"Welcome to "30-hood" sweetheart".

Bite me.

Under this theory, one would then assume that some sort of 'bio-switch' flips off in your body upon your 30th birthday and all body systems then go from "green" to "red" and your life goes to hell in a hand-basket. At this rate, if you subscribe to this theory, it's a hand-basket on roller skates, even.

It's all just stereotyping. I mean- you hit the big 4-0, and you better duck, 'cause there's a mid-life crisis bearing down on you in short order. The big 5-0 hits like a load of bricks and you'd best throw out a line, cause you're in a runaway truck, heading downhill with no brakes. 6-0 sneaks up on you and you're hustling to get all the "fun" stuff done in your retirement, only to find that you've got no more time, or energy, or funds, than you did earlier in life. 7-0 smacks you in the back of the head, and you spend the next decade looking over your shoulder. 8-0 comes and you start counting days, hours, or minutes.

So if those are all such big life markers, why isn't it the big 2-0 when you hit twenty? No longer able to affix the suffix "-teen" to your age, you're no longer a "teenager" but, hey, neither can you legally drink. Welcome to limbo-land.

I do not believe that reaching the big 3-0 milepost is where you first sight the beginning of the end. I don't feel old. "Old" is all in your head. Hell- some evenings I feel 22 again; most mornings I feel 72. (That always follows, in that order, if I try to behave like I'm 22 again) Age, and the expectations of what should come with that age, are all a state of mind. My body isn't falling apart because I turned thirty. It's falling apart because I abuse the hell out of it. Instead of being depressed at reaching 30, I was more of the "now what?", camp. I'd never envisioned life past this point. I suppose I ought to start thinking about the future now though. After all, I've got a mid-life crisis I need to plan for.