We can be comfortable or courageous. But not both. (Equidays: Part 2)

OK so as I said in part one of this series, a key part of my nerves about all this is the fact that I don't feel I have had the time to get him out and about to the extent that I would have liked, in preparation for Equidays.  That said, any person's definition of the appropriate degree of preparedness for any situation is going to be different from the next person, and I do tend to be a worrier / over-preparer.    So to me, we are feeling very under-prepared.

However, I have had this horse his whole life, and taken him to numerous ribbon days and in-hand shows as a youngster.  ​ When I broke my arm I sent him away to be started under saddle by Ben Longwell so he spent a few months in a busy working "ranch" type environment.  And during that time, Ben actually took him to Equidays 2015 to be the green horse in his "First 50 rides" demo series.  So actually Hokey might argue that it's ME that hasn't been out and about enough - he has spent more time in the demo pens than I have.   ​​

My grubby little Champion @ Winter Woollies 2014

Ben Longwell with Hokey at Equidays 2015. Photo by Kimber Brown Photography.

​All that aside, he has never been the "easiest" of horses in new environments (or even his home environment, half the time!).  So I need to do what I can in the time I have to help us be successful. 

Here's the plan:

1. Get him to our local RDA indoor arena as often as possible (I have been able to make 4 bookings between now and then).
2. Take his generally sensible friend Cadence along with him, for the first few outings at least, to help him adjust.
3. Take him out to the beach and other local arenas as well if possible.
4. Play music at home and on the RDA sound system, expose him to children running around, and generally do what I can to habituate him to the environment he's going to be in.
5. Get him OFF the green stuff.  This weekend I will set up a track for him, so that his system doesn't have to deal with all this spring grass that's coming through at the moment.  He's on  daily doses of Graze-Ezy and Alleviate SOS which are products to help off-set the effects of a grass diet.

And here's the results so far.  ​I took him to the indoor arena on the weekend for some familiarisation. Basically, it looked like this.  Hmmmm yeah not ideal.

To be fair, this happened mostly because I brought Cadence along and she was outside neighing to him.  In hindsight, I should have kept his leadrope on and kept the rate of reinforcement super high.  I probably should have brought her inside too, for a while at least.  I thought maybe it might help him to have a run and let some of the adrenaline jiggles out, but it was clearly the wrong decision.  He did come back to me numerous times, and gave me some focused work, but he was far more over threshold than I expected and the whole experience didn't exactly inspire me with confidence.  However, there's nowhere from there but up I guess!

I've taken him out twice this week and he's been MUCH better.  I am a little more optimistic now than I was after Sunday's episode.  ​The second time I took him to the RDA arena (Wednesday) he was focused and connected with me almost the entire time, and when he did run back to the gate he turned and came back to me almost immediately. 

This is us having a liberty play in the arena after my lesson with Cadence on Tuesday.  He's never been to this arena before.  He struggled a little with his park, but was totally connected and responsive the whole time.  I'm keeping my rate of reinforcement a lot higher than usual of course, and not asking for anything hugely difficult.  

More about him next time.
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​There's this amazing TED talk by Kelly McGonigal, called "How to make stress your friend".  She basically talks about how our perceptions of stress are far more influential than we realise and that by viewing stress responses as a positive and helpful thing we may actually change the physiological and mental impact of that stress.  Basically, when our hearts are pounding and we break out in a sweat, we often see these things as a sign that we're not coping well with the situation.  Kelly argues that we should change our view, to see these as signs that, for example, our body is preparing us for the situation and making sure there's plenty of oxygen getting to our brains: "This is my body, helping me rise to this challenge". 

​Coincidentally, a friend sent me this talk by Mel Robbins today, the central message being that the state within our bodies of fear vs excitement is exactly the same. We just need to tell our brains we're excited rather than scared.  

So when I head on into that Equidays arena, I'm going to try to remember that I'm excited (not scared).  My heart is pounding in order to give me strength and energy.  ​I will also focus as much as possible on being calm and connected in the moment with my little dude and supporting him through this.  After all, this is my silly little game and he didn't ask to be part of it.

"Chasing meaning is better for you than trying to avoid disappointment.  Go after what it is that creates meaning in your life, and trust yourself to handle the stress that follows." 
- Kelly McGonigal ​