Today I did not feel so hot. I thought about cancelling my lesson but I decided to tough it out.
I was excited that Katrina was back in our group lesson again. She had been busy riding the hunt every Saturday since it started back up in the fall. So it was the three musketeers back in action, Neal, Katrina and me.
We warmed up per usual and then our trainer set up a diagonal line which consisted of a trot rail in front of the plank jump and then a second jump. He wanted us to canter four strides in between. Basically the same set up as my last lesson. You would think in that case I would nail it, right? Not so.
John wins a $25,000 purse
on Gideon.
It wasn’t until much later when he added a few more jumps and raised them a bit that I did anything decent. Today was one of those (frequent) days when I questioned my riding ability altogether (along with my senses in even considering a goal of anything more serious than a trail ride).
It wasn’t until later in the day that the advice of John Holmes (Pennsylvania as I refer to him) came back to me. “Keep at it,” he advised. “Don’t give up.” “Three years ago I was riding like crap and wanted to quit, but I stuck with it.”It was a good thing he did. John won the 2011 Fieldstone Grand Prix along with many other big purse competitions this past spring and summer.
I guess I will listen to John, and just keep at it.
