It’s been a while since I’ve provided an update on this fella:
I’ve been riding at Lapatsa four to five times a week (including two horses on both weekend days) and it has completely ruined me. I don’t know how I went without horses for more than eight years and I have concluded I don’t want to ever want to be without them again. There is something so profoundly therapeutic about being at the barn– fresh air, the rituals of horse grooming and tack cleaning, and of course riding. It is highly meditative. A few weeks ago over a long weekend I was obsessing about a (pretty serious) mistake I made at work. It was keeping me awake at night, I couldn’t focus on tasks at home. But in the three+ hours a day I was at Lapatsa, I didn’t think about it at all. Usually when I am riding they are playing music on the speakers in the cafe overlooking the arena– often its Johnny Cash, Bob Marley, or Dean Martin (eclectic!) This morning, Simon & Garfunkel’s song Homeward Bound came on and I instantly was back home in California in my dad’s apartment. It is amazing how music has the ability to take you to a totally different place in space and time– a few months ago they were playing the Gipsy Kings and I was struck with this vision of standing near the pool looking toward the house while my mom was sitting at a patio table outside the game room. Bamboleo took me back 10,000 miles and 15 years at least.
After our second/third horse show, Amay and I missed the next few. Amay and I weren’t jumping well so I chose not to go to one, the next two I was traveling, and then when the big two-day championship show came around I was too tired and stressed from work to get excited about spending my weekend at a hot, dusty horse show. The shows here are small but it takes them a whole day to get through the same number of rounds an American show could churn through in 2-3 hours. And they do jump-offs after first rounds, which usually means being on your horse for two or more hours straight, and warming up four times if you jump two classes.
We did the Pan-Cyprian Games over Memorial Day weekend, which was the last horse show of the 2015-16 show season. We thought I’d jump my first round around noon, but it ended up being closer to 1:30 pm by the time I went. I had walked Amay around for almost 40 minutes while they fussed with changing the course and watering/dragging the arena. We had a clear round and ended up second out of ten or so and won 30 euros, which paid for my entries and the stable. I had not been feeling well all weekend, and with the heat and delays I decided I was done for the day with one class. It’s a good thing, too, because the next class took another 90 minutes to get started. I was starting to regret my decision because the course looked easy and not too intimidating, but then a rider passed out mid-course (he is fine but it was scary!) so they stopped the show while they figured out what was going on with him. Eventually they decided he should go in the ambulance to the hospital, and the show was delayed again until a new ambulance arrived. When I left at 4:30 pm, the show still had not started again, so I made the right call!
The weather has gotten very hot now, so I am riding late in the evening (around 7:30 or 8 pm) or early in the morning on weekends (7 am). We’re really starting to progress now, jumping 1.10-1.15 courses (about 3’7-3’9). My sense of feeling is starting to come back to me, as is my brain, and I’m starting to ride more deliberately. Here is a little video Severin compiled for me from my lesson a few weeks ago…