Just Do It

After whining on my Facebook page about motivation and my deserted barn, several friends chimed in with some strategies for playing with my horses when I arrive at a dark, uninviting barn.

I have to go out every evening and feed.  When it's cold and miserable, it's harder to get in the mood to play when I'm all by my lonesome.

For safety reasons, I don't ride when there's no one else on the premise.

Wendy Morgan, my good friend and Licensed 1* Junior Parelli Instructor, suggested that I plan out my ride during lunch and then think about it all day so I'm more excited when I arrive.  I think this would work better if my day were more errands and hum-drum.  Unfortunately I work in an often fast-paced and erratic environment.  My train of thought jumps around like a nervous bunny - not conducive to building momentum through the day.

But I adapted and started thinking about my ride as I drove to the barn.  It takes about 40 minutes on a good day and upwards of an hour if I get stuck in rush hour traffic.

When I arrived at the barn, I plugged my iPod into the barn speaker dock to see if it would work.  Voila!  Just having my own music was motivational.  I'm more motivated to pull together a play list of my favorite music.

I just brushed Cricket and put my bareback pad on her in her stall.  We warmed up for about 15 minutes with some slow groundwork.  I mounted up - with my Carrot Stick - and we had a short, 15 minute ride.

My BFO for the evening - I accidentally popped Cricket on Z1 with the stick.  Truthfully, she ran into the energy.  I was thrown an little off balance as she kind of spun away from the stick.  She immediately licked her lips and was much more responsive to the stick afterward.  I jumped off when she responded to just some body cues for moving around some different obstacles in the arena.