Staying Motivated

Hey everyone! I hope you are enjoying this cooler weather. I know my ponies are. After a long week of work at the hospital I thought it might be a good idea to discuss self-motivation this week.

How many times have you come home from a long hard day of work and feel like you don’t have the energy to ride? Or you have multiple horses to ride in one day? You’ll have your own horses and/or horses for other people, and the last thing you want to do is ride another one? I know I have these days, but here are some tips on how to stay motivated.

First, ride your own horses before anyone else’s. This will ensure that all of your energy will go into your guys. It is not fair to your horses, especially your top competition horses, if you ride them last and you are tired. You still expect them to work as hard and make up for what you are lacking. Plus if you get your guys done first, when your day is over you can come home and relax a little instead of worrying about having more horses to ride.

Another method is to always have some sort of plan before you ride each horse. Instead of just getting on and saying to yourself “I’m going to do dressage today,” have a goal you want to have accomplished in dressage. Say your transitions need work, so spend that day doing transitions, then next time focus on something else in particular. Finally, have a day where you can put it all together.

The main way I don’t get burned out riding multiple horses is by doing different things with each horse every day. I would want to strangle something if I had to ride in the same arena and do dressage on all 5 horses. So instead, I may jump one horse, trail ride another, flat one in the ring, flat one out in the field, and condition the other. We have to keep our minds busy and motivated like we try to do with our horses to keep from getting “ring sour.”

This sport and other equestrian sports, as we all know, are not for the weak-minded. It takes a lot of hard physical work, and self-motivation, but go out and hug your horse, or go to a competition to remind yourself why you do it every now and then.

Finally, this week I wanted to also give you a tip that is a little off topic. Hoosier has some minor allergies and I started him on Contribute for those a year ago. Contribute also gives him a ton of other added benefits. Anyway, this week he went a little under 48 hours without Contribute and his hives came back. Less than 24 hours after getting Contribute again his hives started to disappear.

Hoosier has never turned his nose up at Contribute. He had no problem eating the full dose of 2 ounces starting day one. My other guys were a little pickier, but after a couple of days giving them a small amount and slowly working them up to 2 ounces they all started eating it right up. Just a heads-up for you guys with picky horses that might turn their noses up at new supplements. The key is to start them off with a small amount and work them up.

I’ve not had a horse that wouldn’t eat something they were slowly introduced to. Also, if you don’t like the smell, a quick rinse of the feed bucket takes care of that and if you find pouring messy call KPP and they can hook you up with a pump.

Until next time, Safe Rides!

Megan