MidLife Horse Girl
Nor Cal Obstacle Challenge December 2022
I had planned for months to attend this event as it was organized by the same group I started the year with. A year met with fear being a constant companion partnered with a bout of Labyrinthitis (think Vertigo on steroids). March through about July was marked with finding myself and relearning walking, running, balance and riding.
My first outing was highlighted with not even trying half, if not more of the obstacles. Your body heals way faster than the mind after an accident!
Obstacles was a new discipline for us and I have carried over the endurance philosophy into it-ride your own ride. So while pretty ribbons are nice, It's impossible for a random judge who has no knowledge of your journey while providing a subjective opinion, and therefore can't quite capture your own successes and challenges. Does that mean I'm not competitive-hardly, rather, I compete with myself. With that, I had a very specific goal.
The theme for this outing was flexibility and an extreme sense of humor with a dash of insanity thrown in for fun. Mother Nature was in a seriously bad mood spewing torrential rains which brought an added goal-do not die. My normal hauling rig was out, loaded the back up rig which about half way through the trip to the event had a shorted wire and lost my trailer brake connection. Hubby was coming with for his first 2 day horse event along with Roo and Angus. Angus isn't a very "peopley" heeler, this was his event as well. Fun times!
Nearly eight years ago Cowboy and I ventured to an indoor arena during a rain storm. He lost his damn mind. Our first event this weekend was in-hand, in the covered arena, with a metal roof with deafening pounding rain. Let the games begin.
This time around, armed with more tools in the toolbox I slowed everything down. The walk in was met with many stops, waiting until Cowboy's head lowered, then moved on. This seemed to work, within 20 minutes on the course I had a calm, lick chewing horse. Unforeseen goal number two met-a past demon laid to rest.
The break in between this event and the in saddle portion was my time to quiet the "what if's" in my head. With hubby in the stands filming whilst wrangling two heelers and a welcome addition of my trainer arriving to root me on-I could not be more happy with the weekend. Not every obstacle was completed "correctly" but each and every obstacle was attempted with only two participants-Cowboy and myself-fear had left the building. The final goal completed.
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