WHEN I SAY MY HORSE IS A SAINT — I mean it.

Our first show together is just a tick over a month away and I’m feeling the pressure! Our cattle cutting practice got rained out so we just worked the flag this week. Those readers who know Gator know that he is a lot less animated on the flag, and I really need to practice my seat and reading cattle. The former isn’t helped by Gator’s apathetic attitude towards the flag, and the latter is difficult without constant access to fresh cattle (this is changing soon!).

Anyways, we decided at the last minute to haul out and spend the morning in the cutting pen and It wasn’t pretty. Seriously. I was stiff and wasn’t letting my horse do his job.

What I know I need to work on before our first cutting horse show:

• Relaxing my legs and keeping them “engaged” a little more (with my particular mount, this makes him feel super secure and confident)

• Keeping my freaking hand down! Gator didn’t give me any funny business yesterday, and I didn't need to be in his mouth. He was doing his job, I just wasn’t trusting him to get it done.

• Working on keeping my eye on the cow

• Making cleaner cuts

There’s a common theme in my life, I’m always “doing the most” and am trying to control everything, which doesn’t really work with horses. Letting go and trusting my horse is a learning process, but I’m committed.

This said, I showed up AND I stayed on, and that’s a win. We ended on a good note thanks to Ryan and now it’s time for some R&R for sweet little Gator. He didn’t pull any dumb moves, came back to me every time and was super forgiving. He also hauled like a champ in our stock trailer and put up with my general Sunday shenanigans. Our riding crew is the BEST, we’re always laughing.

Cutting Horse Training Online

This is not sponsored in any way, but something that helps me outside of the arena is Cutting Horse Training Online! They have TONS of informational videos dissecting winning runs, how to properly sit and position yourself (I needed this one) and more! I like watching these on my lunch break.

Next steps are…

Cheers to an exciting week ahead (It’s Run for a Million time, baby!) and many more learning lessons ahead. This journey is not easy, but I know that facing these problems head-on, doing the scary things like hauling by myself and showing up will push us both to be better (OK me, Gator is fine).

Do you have a list of what you KNOW you need to work on? How do you tackle it?