PSA: Trail riding

The lovely lady who owns/runs the barn that Prisoner is at made an interesting observation about trail riding today.  This is after I mentioned that while I often enjoy the end result/parts and pieces of trail rides I am often petrified.  She said she has known way more than eventers than you would expect who are not really into trail riding/downright scared of it.  Yup, that's me.  I ride racehorses, will get on nearly any hooligan in an arena or field, start babies, have run Prelim and hope to go further, on trail rides I often think my heart is going to burst out of my chest.  Not from joy.  From sheer terror.  Heck, most of my early riding miles were doing endurance, go figure.  Yes, I believe the good times I have had on trail rides far outweigh the bad times.  I have walked and full on galloped (on purpose for conditioning) these trails for the last 10 years.  I know them quite well, the only time I've fallen out there ended in hysterical laughter (funny story for another day).  I have countless pictures of me smiling and having fun on trails, but there it is, that insidious thing called fear, it knows no bounds, no limits.  Fear and confidence get talked about a lot in blog land, for good reason, it affects a lot of people at some time.  

Having fun

Prisoner went on his first trail ride today.  He was perfect, in fact he dealt with me sword fighting hidden trail riding demons.  Many of the issues could have been eliminated by fewer horses, we had 5 along.  They were all great and I love all the people who went, but Prisoner and I kept getting stuck between horses pulling ahead and trying to stay back for the slower one behind us.  It got him a tiny bit worried and while I rode through it and none of us is any worse for wear, not only is being scared no fun, it is really freaking embarrassing.

P-diddy has cute pink ears

For realz though, I love to gallop out there in pairs or trot in pairs.  Groups worry me, but I can deal with it.  I love looking at the scenery, chatting with friends, feeling the swinging walk under me.  Somewhere in there the wires short circuit and I seriously think I'm going to die or be maimed or who knows what but logic flies out the window.  If you love trail rides you might have trouble understanding this, but maybe you have been fearful of jumps, or loading horses in trailers, or public speaking, or galloping a horse, or dogs, or anything.  None of those things scare me, but trails do.  I wish we had access to wooded trails, not scared there.  Possibly I'm dealing with mild agoraphobia, it took me years to think about taking a picture of the view from the top of the hills we ride on, mostly I just wanted to get off the horse and hug the ground.

Squashing fear, taking pictures from hilltops

Imagine you are nervous about jumping.  You warm the horse up and all is well.  You finally decide to head towards that jump and that 15-30 seconds of approach feel like the end of the world.  Then you jump and the world doesn't end.  Now imagine that 30 seconds of terror stretched out into an undetermined amount of time.  I never know if I will be scared at the beginning, or middle, or end, usually it is a few minutes here and there.  I try and break it down, I'm not scared of hills or terrain (not a fan of next to cliffs, but who is?), different speeds don't scare me.  I really can't pin point it, I think if I could form a purpose for what I was doing I could focus on that instead of the strange fear.  Like jumps, or if someone is visibly nervous I suddenly focus on them and helping them chill and my own fear dissipates.  

Hey yo having fun here too!

I guess I just want to say to the people who aren't scared, don't judge, don't belittle, don't rush, keep us talking.  Just like every other fear and phobia, it takes long slow work and a whole truck load of determination and patience.  Also to those who aren't scared, thank you for putting up with all of us who are, if we snap at you don't take it personally, it is real hard to talk when having imaginary sword fights with stuff you can't even identify.  

Yes, just yes.
We already know horse people are crazy, I'm just helping bring it to a new level!

Take that fear, just get out of here!