I don’t know whether or not you’ve noticed this, but ususally the title pertains to either Sue or I. Today, it really is my title.
We were in a nice sized 3 hour clinic this morning at Pine Dell. There were 9 wonderful horses in the clinic. Sue is getting better with her claustrophobia right along with my fear termination.
But, we still have a problem going between horses while we are trying to stay at a consistent gait on the wall. While we are doing that, other horses are standing around, creating squeeze places for us. Sometimes other horses are coming from the opposite direction on their own path…but it still looks like they are headed straight for us. Sue doesn’t like that at all.
Coming around the corner, Sue stopped and protested passing a horse standing too close to the rail (in Sue’s opinion). Plus the horse was facing us…even more difficult for Sue. There was a nice sized opening, but we failed to squirt thru it.
Jenny said, “You need a strong focus to get Sue thru these spots. Look where you want her to go.”
I decided this meant that I couldn’t stare worridly at the offending horse . I believe this also meant that couldn’t avert my eyes to the upcoming disaster and just look down at Sue’s head.
Focus It’s a five letter word.
The next time we came around the corner, the horse was standing in the same place. I focused strongly on the opposite wall where I wanted Sue to go. We squirted right thru the opening and around the opposite corner we went!
Focus. I’ve forgotten about focus when riding Sue. Rather, I’ve been focused on the “stopping things” rather than where we are to go.
Focus