I went to a roping competition today and I was talking to people I rope with and they said something I hear all the time, “you and Alaska always do good!” As sweet as that is and how much I’d like for that to be the case, it’s not 100% true. We’re both living and breathing and make mistakes. I feel in the horse community we only talk about and share our ups, but I feel it’s important to talk about your downs as well. Sometimes your “failures” make you stronger. Not only as a horseman, but as a person in general. I’d like to talk about an incident that happened that made me stronger and hopefully let other people who are struggling with a certain thing with your horse know, it happens! We all have bad runs or placings! You’ll push through and before you know it, you’ll be better than ever.
Here’s one of my training struggles: almost 3 years ago, I had a really bad roping accident. I was on a high school equestrian team at the time and I was competing at the first meet of the season. I walked in the box all confident and ready, getting those nervous/excited jitters. We were settling in the box and Alaska was getting pretty excited and was just moving around. I didn’t think much of it. A few seconds later she reared up a little and I didn’t drop my reins and she flipped over backwards on top of me. Honestly it happened so quick, I don’t know what was going through my head. It was not her fault, as a handler I should have dropped my reins and reacted better than I had. We both ended up with minor bruises and cuts, but so lucky because it could have been A LOT worse.
After this incident, we had a really hard time getting back in the box. She was terrified. She wouldn’t even go near it. I thought our roping days were done. I put hours and hours into training to try to be able to do it again. I cried multiple times thinking I wasn’t a good enough trainer or that it was all my fault. After months of hard work, we were back at it. And then fast forward less than a year after, we were silver medalists in breakaway roping which qualified us for state!
Now, 3 years later she walks in and out of the box so easily and is such a rockstar at breakaway. The main reason I’m sharing this story is to let you know to never give up. You’ve got this and before you know it, you’ll look back and smile because those “setbacks” were just minor obstacles on your way to success. Believe in you and your horse. Always. ❤
Alaska's Journey 