Fairhill '23 -When Doubt Strikes…

How do you handle self-doubt?  Can your horses pick up on it? When it strikes, what do you do?

I can’t answer this question for you, your answers are as unique to you as a living being and I can only relate how they come to pass in me.  Here is one tale of doubt I had recently.

This spring Glory and I entered our first endurance race of the year a bit earlier than usual and decided to enter a Maryland ride that we haven’t done before.  This ride is very early for horses used to the long Western New York winters, and the stars never really lined up before this year to make it a go. I felt that he was primed enough to make a slow, easy non-racing of it, and I knew that this ride would set us up great for later rides in the year.  He was healthy and we had gotten some good conditioning rides in.  Can you sense the doubt already creeping in these words though?

Well, we went anyway, and after a rough start in which Glory disagreed getting his halter on to load up (I had clipped him and I think he was cold and cranky, once he had his cooler on he jumped on the trailer like a pro), we were on our way.  After an uneventful trailer ride to Maryland and vet in, we settled into our endurance ride routine. 

Glory was pleased as punch at all the nice grass there, and it was warmer, so he seemed quite happy that night, in fact when we walked the horses to the open field of the start, we really felt their ‘blood rise’ or excitement start to set in.  My sister and I quickly decided to start at the back of the pack to avoid race brain in the wide-open terrain. We knew that it was going to be a wet morning, so I mentally prepared myself for it and enjoyed the significantly warmer weather then we were used to.

But the seeds of that niggly self-doubt were planted…

We awoke to a stormy morning, and boy is it mentally hard to get tacked up and get ready for a 50-mile ride in the rain.  Just as we get ready to mount up, it starts to thunder and lightning.  The horses weren’t bothered much, but our human brains clung to the camp a little longer then we thought, and we ended up starting 10 minutes later then planned.  I thought this was no big deal, as my ride plan was to turtle (come in last).  I was not racing at this ride, I just wanted to enjoy the new trails. My first way of addressing that nagging feeling in the back of my mind was to back off and go slow.

The horses surged through the rain, putting their heads into the wind and laying their ears back to avoid getting water blown in them.  We had no worries about race brain, the horses were too preoccupied with the weather. Thankfully it was warmer because I made no attempt to stay dry.  Usually, the heat of Glory and the heat of moving are enough for me.  The rain lightened up as we went, and by noon it was clearing right up.  The horses felt good, I watched Glory’s heartrate recover well on the monitor, and the trails were super neat, wide carriage type trails with tunnels and bridges over and under roads.  It was a long first loop, and but it was near the end of the 25 miles that I started to get the feeling that Glory wasn’t 100 % on board with this adventure.  He quickly got his bearings about were the ride camp was, and decided to tell me we should try and take a short cut.  I had to gently tell him no… we have to follow the ribbons.

He responded by getting ‘whiny’.  I had to work much harder to keep him focused and moving along.  FYI, this is exhausting on a 50-mile ride.  My self-doubt full bloomed into…’Oh no, Does Glory hate endurance riding now?’  (Oh, dagger to my heart…)

Of course, this is how the specter of self-doubt works.  It takes you when you are weak, and then will not listen to logic and hit you in your heart. 

Now, in endurance riding, this is where your horsemanship is really tested.  How to maintain your relationship with your partner and manage each other’s doubts.  This is why I feel endurance riding is way harder than endurance running.  When it’s just yourself running a race, it’s just you and the race, your hurdles are your own to handle.  With endurance riding, you have the utmost responsibility to your horse to keep them fit and healthy and happy.

We get to camp, and I’m wet and cold, and feeling that doubt creep all inside me.  My first thoughts are to Glory, who passes the Vet check with all A’s and CRI (Cardiac Recovery Index) of 48/48.  That’s REALLY good for doing 25 miles for the first loop.  He eats and drinks, and I do the same.  This confirmation of his fitness tells me that he is physically fine, and not under stress.  (If he really hated this and was stressing out, his vet card metabolics would tell another story, and I still had the heart rate monitor on).  The sun starts to come out, and I tell myself, we’ll just take it easy on the next loop and enjoy ourselves.

On we go.  It gets warmer out, we get dried out, and we enjoy the trails.  The horses truck along, and we average about a 5-mph pace, which is fine for our first ride this early in the season.  Glory still has that sense of lack of impulsion and determines that he would rather coast behind another horse rather then seek out the trail. I am also struggling mightily with the doubt, feeling it steal my precious energy away.  I resolve that if Glory shows any physical signs of stress, I will pull him at the next check.  I know I can’t box the doubt away, that will make it fester and explode, but I kind of do that anyway, like I said, logic doesn’t work with self-doubt.

I hold to my present moment course of action of watching Glory’s attitude and heartrate like a hawk.  Holding to that course gives me at least a path to steer my emotional output in real time.  I also start making stories up, what would I do, if Glory retired from endurance? What changes could I make to make it fun for him? Should I get him a full thorough physical when we get home? 

Note: This just makes the doubt move in deeper because none of this can be acted on in the moment.  Making an emotional stew of yuck, that I literally ride in for a few hours.  When I can’t stand that anymore, and realize the damage the doubt is causing, I reach down deep. Down to the spiritual level.  I reach towards my intuition, that place which is ultimately guided by higher powers then my ego and consciousness.

My intuition has gotten me out of a lot of jams, and I do put a fair amount of trust and faith in it, especially when my logic lets me down.  I hold up my stories and questions to the light of intuition, and find myself coming back to the present moment.  In the heart of the ride in the moment, I know that Glory is fine.  We are both having some inward struggles.  He is a sentient being and going through his own doubts.  Maybe in me as a leader.  We can do nothing but SUPPORT each other as best we can. 

So that is what we do.  This line of thought finally calms the demon of doubt down.  We continue our ride, get through another Vet check and hold, and on to the final 10 miles.  Here is when Glory really becomes displeased.  He keeps trying to turn around and go back to camp.  I keep gently guiding him on, and watch him closely, hoping he doesn’t get too hot in the bright sunny weather.  We endure.  We endure.  I have one tantrum in which the doubt comes exploding out (remember how dangerous boxing emotions up is?).   Glory has a major disagreement and wants to just cut trail and head straight to camp. We all endure and move on, this is why your physical riding skills must be up to snuff, trucking still about 5 mph.  Then we get to the last bridge and my sister’s horse Merri BOLTS.  They get back under composure and I look behind us and see black clouds.  Huh, another thunderstorm coming.  We all, horses, and riders, start to really pick up speed toward camp.  As I look back, I see the sky growing blacker and the air pressure drops.  The horses don’t freak out, a storm is a storm to them, but they moved with more willingness then they showed for the last 15 miles!  We see the finish line in the distance, and the race officials are waving us in, HURRY HURRY.  Now I start to get kind of freaked out.

We finish, and the vet tell us to hurry, there’s a TORNADO warning, it’s going to hit us in 20 minutes.  We vet through, horses were absolutely fine, great vet cards, and we get tack to trailer and batten down the hatches.  Note we are in an open field.  No buildings within ½ a mile.  My phone starts the warning to get into a interior wall or basement ASAP.  Huh, can’t do that here.  We bundle the horses up in sheets and make sure they are sort of secure, so if the fence blows down they aren’t caught in it, fencers are off.  The sky goes from black to bruise yellow.

We hide in the trailer as it hits.  It was scary.  We watched from the door as the wind blew the porta potties over and our buckets go flying by.  The trailer rocks. Tents are blown flat.  Thankfully the tornado didn’t touch down, it stayed high up in the sky.  After 20 minutes, the skies clear.  We pick up the aftermath, everyone is fine.  We don’t sleep well, and keep getting up to check on the horses. 

The next morning dawns clear and dry.  Glory is all dried out under his 2 coolers and sheet, and clearly wants to be freed from his layers to eat grass.  As we pack up, I take him and Merri on a walk around the camp to stretch before the ride home. Glory is bright and happy, munching on everyone’s leftovers.  I decide to let him walk me, and he leads me along exactly like a dog dragging his human around.  I deliberately let him, to apologize for yesterday and to try and understand what he was feeling.  Before I know it, Glory is leading me through the scary tunnel out to the trails.  Note, a horse would not normally do something like this when they have plenty of food on the camp side.  We stop at the start of the race trail.  He looks at me.  ‘Duh, today is a much better weather day, now we should go for a ride.’ 

My intuition clicks, to a certainty that feels rock solid.  HE KNEW the storm was coming all day long.  That’s why he was trying to turn back.  He doesn’t hate endurance riding, otherwise WHY would he have LED ME to the start the next day.  He’s just letting me know what weather is safe and what isn’t.  I almost cry with relief.  He’s looking out for me the same as I look out for him. 

My self-doubt almost crippled us, but we worked through it.  I know how to navigate these storms better now.  So does Glory, as he evidenced by clearly communicating to me the next day though his action.  This is endurance riding after all, a sport that demands dialogue of the highest order.  I mean that statement in all of it various implications, mundane and spiritual.

How do you handle self-doubt around horses?  Each situation has different nuances and each person and horse may need different strategies.  I know my biggest strategy is my faith in intuition, now let’s just see if I can remember it next time self-doubt strikes...