Dahlia

The mare who has changed my whole horse worldview.

When I look at Dahlia I see one of the most gorgeous creatures I’ve ever been blessed to know. And I get to be with her every single day…that in itself is a gift.

But the thing that is different about her and that stands out to me is that she is truly spirited. Not in a bad way, not in a necessarily good way either, it just is so with her. She’s one that you’d never want to battle into submission or wear her down, because that spirit that is Dahlia is so truly her that you’d be changing who she is for the worst to take it away. She’s opinionated but not mean. Sensitive, yes, but not in the extreme. It’s just that she would like to be listened to and not be forced. Also she so quickly goes from curious to frightened, that she gets herself worked up easily. She seems to prefer to use her energy for that curiosity at times rather than focus on what I’m asking her to put her brain on, which in my opinion translates into the “scary” corner getting scarier, and scarier, and scarier each time we go into it. I know that when I come to the training days with an agenda I see more and more that it needs to be fluid. Rigid agendas end up with rigid Dahlia and rigid me, and then I spend the whole time trying to change that brace (mentally and physically) instead of working on what I wanted to do that day anyway. And I have a hard time with that because my Type A-ness and my Ennegram  Type 1-ness says to be productive and DO the thing. Dahlia is bred for this thing—dressage–though she doesn’t know that… And she doesn’t say, ‘Oh hey, we get to work at something I should be good at. That will be fun!’ She’s more ‘….Ummm no. Not like that’. 

I’m telling you, dressage is not for the faint of heart. It’ll expose you. And all of your flaws, not just in your physical riding but in your demeanor, your mindset, your head space. And a horse like Dahlia, she just tells you louder than the other ones typically do. She doesn’t agree with “should” and takes issue with me bringing tension to our time that has nothing to do with riding, ie. the rest of my stressful life. She absorbs that tension and then throws it back to me as if to say, “No. I refuse to keep that for you. Deal with it so that we can actually focus on this now and not the cacophony of the rest of your life.” 

Usually what precipitates these moments of insight for me are moments of self-doubt and fear. I wonder if I’m good enough and I wonder why she alarms me at times. And I think it’s because she is SO MUCH. Sometimes that “so much” is a goofy personality on the ground that begs for attention while she’s being groomed, sometimes that “so much” is that spooky corner that builds and builds, and sometimes that “so much” is a partner who knows my thoughts and does the thing I was wanting just before I think I applied the aid. I just have to be able to stretch myself and realize that I don’t know and sometimes I get it wrong. That’s hard for a perfectionist… It’s a lot more asking a question and not knowing the answer all of the time, versus asking the question because you’re trying to get to a specific answer. Thank goodness I have a trainer and a dressage village to guide us. Because we sure need all of them!

Also what has worked for and against us is that I have so much hope and dreams piled up with Dahlia. She has so much potential and I want to do so much. But guess what? Time has to be accounted for as well. I bought her when my son was 6 months old, so I still didn’t have my riding body or my core back to what I needed. I took some slow time getting to know her in the first year. We built an arena and that took a huge amount of time that I could not ride, and then she injured a tendon three months later. A lot of things beyond our control have occurred, and we’ve had some huge gaps in consistent training. But I’m in a habit of judging myself harshly, and so there we are and I’m definitely to blame in my head for our lack of huge progress through the dressage levels. A healthier approach is to say, “Wow, life has thrown a few curve balls to our timeline and we are also sorting out our relationship with training. Let’s take the pressure effectively off and work on the basics.” 

For me, I function well when a goal exists, but compassion matters maybe more than anything in regard to my goals. I need to have compassion for her as an individual who doesn’t necessarily jump up and down at the prospect of doing hard things and who has dealt with pain in training as well, and also have compassion for myself who is an amateur. I do this sport for the joy of it, not for a paycheck. That being said, I judge myself as if I should be presenting like a professional every day. That’s not fair and that definitely steals the joy. It’s amazing how much my riding actually shows me all my tough stuff. It’s certainly not always an outlet for fun. But it’s something even more important—it’s a mirror of what needs to change at my core. And how I can be better there which translates hopefully to a better all-around person.

Dahlia and I have had some beauty in our rapport due to the difference in how we’ve spent our time together over the past year. In year one with her, I was driven, goal-oriented, and pushing for progress. I look back and see a lot of hope and a fair amount of rigidity in my mindset. When she strained her tendon, it took me aback and I learned a lot about care in soft tissue injuries. It changed our relationship a lot. We spent a lot of time hanging out with ice boots on, hand grazing, eventually walking under tack for some very long walks, and adding in small bits of trotting and eventually cantering. After the rehab for her strain, which took about 6 months, I was thinking we were all good, that I learned something valuable in this chapter about the relationship and training, and now was moving back to my goal. The old rigidity began to slowly come back and that easy rapport with her was not so easy, which made me frustrated but mostly sad.

Within a few months of being back to regular work, she had a fat leg again and we found out that she had aggravated her check ligament, which is the best buddy of the tendon that we’d worked so hard to rehab. It was even fatter and angrier than the first time, and now I was beginning to panic some and lose heart. I completely blamed myself that I must have overdone the training when we got back to it or for choosing the wrong turnout strategy for her. There is truly no way to know what happened, but I can say that I have a lot of empathy now for people who want to wrap their horses in bubble wrap for the rest of their lives. And I now understand why some people do individual turnout, utilize stalls daily, etc. Because finding the right flow for Dahlia has been a puzzle to figure out. Not to mention the rehab part where you try to tell a creature who is made to move that they can’t move that much and please be careful–don’t spook or play. These thoughts can keep a person awake at night for sure. But thankfully our vets are wonderful and extremely attentive and Dr. Boggs assisted me in a thoughtful treatment plan as well as figuring out the right layout for a “patio” for her so that she felt like she was able to move around a little and see her friends but she couldn’t move enough to make the check ligament angry.

In the midst of all of this, I had to do a thing that was extremely hard for me: just wait. I put my whole vat of dreams and fears with her on the shelf and just focused on getting her better. And that meant not anticipating all the bad and the ugly—just taking it day by day. One way I did this somewhat successfully is that I had my pony, Phineas to ride and train. My “fun little project pony” probably saved my sanity because I still had a horse to ride and focus on and we had a lot of success. Baby green horses are fun in that way—they make huge progress just with timing and repetitions, so this was honestly a great win for me in a tough time with Dahlia. 

As I write this, we are five months past the onset of injury #2 and I’m able to walk her under tack and her turnout has expanded a bit. She’s been having great rechecks, chiro and acupuncture have been helping noticeably, and we have all reason to believe that we can get back to regular training eventually. But I found myself on a tack walk with her today marveling at what a sweet and attentive girl she is when we just walk and enjoy the sunshine. And I’m wondering how I can better transition her back to regular “work” without it feeling so “worky” to her. I think the key is in me and my attitude. Somehow I need a big dose of “enjoy the sunshine” mindset to overlord my training rides. I think one ingredient that helps with this is that I will have gratitude in a huge heaping dose that we are back. But I’m really going to have to meet her where she is and where I am and take the “should” out of it. This means I have to listen to my gut on when to stop. Because I’m pretty good at that if I listen to that little voice over the loud judgmental one. That loud one is super annoying… and very persistent…

I want to move forward with that gratitude that every single day that I get to ride is a blessing. And I want to preserve the kinship that we have developed in our almost 2 and ½ years of doing this growing together. Horses are my greatest teachers and I’m thankful that a sensitive mare with a sweet and full heart came for me to show me how much I needed to grow. I look forward to the challenge even if it is the most stretching I’ve done so far! More to come…