Trying too hard

So last night was not a good ride. I can only point the finger at myself. I made the big mistake of ignoring my gut feelings. As I went to take her out of the stall, she was very lazy. Not normal for her. I was tried and sore for working on my left elbow. I *said* I was just going to make it an easy night. Then Donnie came into the ring with the video camera. I went against my better judgement and pushed her too hard too long. I was trying to show off our deeper frame and my elbow at my side. I was tired though so it didn't feel or look pretty at all. The thing I love about every Roemer offspring I have had is that they never stop trying, and sometimes they try too hard. Last night after the ride, I was very upset with myself, for not listening to my horse. It brought me back to Willy in Colorado at the NARYC. Canter pirouettes were the toughest movement for him. We went into to warm up and he didn't feel right. Then we went into the ring to do the team test and went for broke. The test was going well, and then we got to the canter pirouettes. Across the diagonal, I started to ask him to canter on the spot to prepare. He sat down, I started to ask for the around and everything feel apart. He let out a Argh!! and then walked, his whole body shut down. I remember being so mad. We went to do the next one, a little better but still not good. We finished the test, and I cried. He was just not himself. We took him to vet when we got back... he had basically displaced 5 vertebrae in his spine, and it was causing pressure on his nerves. He lived for 30 days in a special padded stall at Dr Merrit's and had radio active dyes injecting into his body. The poor guy was in so much pain, but still tried to do his job the best he could. This was Gram last night. She was tired, I was trying too hard for the video camera. By the end of our workout when things were really going downhill (both figuratively and in reality) she was running on the canter 20 m circle... I finally gave up for us both. She was too tired to do thing properly and I was trying to force it for the camera's sake.

The moment I got off, I thought to myself why didn't I just stop after the warm up to have jsut a lite workout? How many days did I set myself back because of my bad call? This is why I have a love hate relationship with riding. There is only so much you can blame on the horse. It is never 100% the horses fault. There are thinks would could have done better or differently to get the result we orginally wanted.

Lesson learned. When we are both tired, it isn't worth it to ride if it isn't going to better one or both of us. Hopefully, I will not make this mistake again anytime soon. I am sure I will do this type of thing again, but the next time the situation will have a better result. I will stop instead of try to fix everything all at once. Happy Easter!