The Endless Plateau

It happens to the best of us. No matter who you are, where you live, or what your dreams are, we all hit a dead end at some point in our career. This is when an important decision must be made: to quit or push through.

While my plateau feels like it has plagued the majority of my equestrian career, it has been the most daunting in the last two years. After I sold my horse Simon, I feared I would never get another chance to show such a talented equitation mount. Thus far, it has been true. While I am lucky enough to be able to exercise quarter horses and take lessons on some outstanding dressage horses, I can't help but feel that my career has come to a dead stop. Sure, I am learning invaluable lessons on the wide variety of horses I've been put on and my dressage work has improved exponentially, but what has it done to get me closer to my dream of running a rescue?

Now, I am not naïve. I understand that the equestrian world is cutthroat. It will chew you up and spit you out if you let it. I also know that the show ring is the most common way to get recognition among your peers. While social media and local success can occasionally be enough, it's generally best to not rely on those outlets to boost you up the ladder. My trainer truly does her best to get me rides on upper level horses and propel me to recognition and success as she did as a young rider. Between my extremely restricted financial means and the hesitant nature of owners, there has not been much progress on this front.

I am not saying that success in the show ring is more important than success and growth in your training. In fact, I believe the opposite is true. I have focused on my skills and my training methods for the entirety of my riding career. I just believe I have come to a point where I need to begin building a reputation on a larger scale than those I ride with on the weekends.

As I come to the end of my years as a young rider, I fear being thrown into the world of adult professional riders. Competing with those who make their living training and showing and flipping horses would be a haunting notion to any rider, no matter the discipline. This may be my last year to make a name for myself before being thrown into the pond as a mere tadpole, ready to be swallowed up by my rivals. I do not claim to be an exceptional rider, able to compete with those who have had years of proper training, riding horses costing 10 times more than I could even contemplate spending without having a nervous breakdown. However, I believe I have been given a gift to connect with these animals, understand where the fear or aggression is coming from, and guide them to a better life. That is a gift worth sacrificing greatly to use.

My only passion in life is training horses. To take an animal everyone fears and transform it into a horse everyone envies is the greatest joy of my life. Showing people that what they see on the surface is not the limit of a horse's potential. To show that these horses' personalities are often ruined by men, and usually can be fixed by them as well. Spending years on the hunter/jumper/equitation circuit has shown me how necessary this realization is to the masses. Watching riders give up on horses with minor, fixable issues has broken my heart.

The best example is my last horse, Simon. He was brought to my hunter/jumper/equitation training barn with a plethora of behavioral issues. Biting, stopping, bucking, bolting, rearing, kicking, etc. While I was very hesitant about purchasing him and went back and forth on it for months, I couldn't be happier I did. It turns out, the only reason he stopped at jumps was because he had premature arthritis in his hocks. One injection later, he began to trust that jumping would no longer be painful. As soon as he was suppled from being stiff as a board, he found that there was no reason to buck or bolt, as he no longer had to be kicked to go or yanked around to make turns because his body was functioning properly. The aggression diminished as soon as he realized that I didn't treat him as if he were a danger to myself and others. Sure, his issues never completely disappeared, but he became a horse everyone would gather to watch because he was so happy in his job and rode beautifully. There was nothing wrong with him, what needed to be fixed were the multitudes of people who decided he was a lost cause in the past.

Unfortunately, I have not yet found a way to broadcast this message on a wider platform and become someone people find worthy to listen to. Though as it is with any plateau, it has to end. I'll be here, pushing through until that climb begins again.