Stretch, grow, live, learn (Equidays series: part 4 of 4)

Now that we're home and settled, here's some final thoughts on the whole experience.  This is the final instalment in this series.

The seminar on Friday, and the demos/clinics on all three days had much larger audiences than I'd expected.  The seminar room was almost full and I had full grandstands for the most part (I was pleasantly surprised considering my clinic times clashed with a number of very popular international clinicians in natural horsemanship, dressage etc).   In terms of the Sunday night Top Talent performance, we won the Fan Favourite competition, and came 3rd overall in the Open division.  So all in all, a very successful event!

And that's all you need to know really!
​
....however, if you're interested in a bit of a blow-by-blow account of Equidays Top Talent, with some "behind the scenes" insight, read on.

Thank goodness I'd had the foresight to get some help for the weekend! Asking for help is not my strong point but Equidays gave me extra passes for 'grooms' so I took advantage.  I had Tash Pearce to help me with Hokey, making sure he was spotlessly clean and fed and walked out and all that stuff, Becca O'Byrne who helped with horses and was #1 organiser for the Top Talent props/performance as well as general dogsbody (horsebody?), and in the end I also had my dear friend Jane Lenaghan who drove up to support me over the weekend and though she couldn't stay for the performance she helped keep me sane and (mostly) on the rails during the lead up to Sunday night's show.  Thank you so much all of you xxx.

We were some of the first to arrive on site on Thursday, while event setup was still underway.  We found our spot in the far corner where we'd be camped with all the other Top Talent competitors and the Wilson sisters' eleven horses.  Vicki Wilson (despite her arm being in a sling after shoulder surgery) helped me to re-arrange the barriers to make Hokey's yard bigger which meant he had the best one of the lot. 

With spectacularly bad timing, I had caught a cold off my pre-schooler (aka the sweet little germ factory) the week of Equidays, and by the time I arrived I was feeling relatively ok but coughing a lot.  At one point during Friday's seminar I had to let the audience silently read the slide while I desperately drank water and sprayed numbing spray down my throat until the coughing passed.  All fairly mortifying but everyone was super kind about it.  One lady came up and pressed Strepsils upon me at the end.  All that aside, the audience seemed to enjoy the subject matter ("How animals learn and how best to motivate them") and were engaged, asking lots of good questions.  

Photo credit: Bridie Rose Photography

Saturday afternoon, after a massive audience showed up for my "De-spook your horse using clicker training" clinic, I was looking forward to the night show and the opportunity to just sit and watch rather than have to do anything myself.  My 15 minute Top Talent rehearsal (the first and at that stage possibly the only time we would be allowed to take our horses into the indoor arena before the performance on Sunday night) was scheduled for 9.45pm, directly after the night show.  I didn't find watching the night show as relaxing as I'd thought I would, knowing that it would be me and Hokey in that enormous spotlighted arena tomorrow.  

We nipped out of the night show before the finale in order to get Hokey plus props up to the arena and be ready to go in when we were called.  It took ages until they let us in but when we finally got in there, the audience was still filing out, there was aerial silks and cables hanging down from the ceiling with workmen dismantling things, and the whole place smelled strongly of gunpowder from the last act.  Hokey was beside himself, at one point rearing up (basically unheard of) and totally unable to even walk straight let alone think straight.  I was so tense that I was not able to help him at all, so Jane took him for a few minutes to give me a chance to take a breath.  He improved somewhat with time, but was not able to come back down to earth sufficiently to even consider doing any tricks.  By the time I got to bed it was close to midnight, and we were told to be back at the arena at 5am for another session (the arena was busy all day with clinics and competitions, hence the crazy timing for getting in there).  I coughed my way through the few hours until my alarm went off, hardly sleeping at all.  Despite that, the early morning familiarisation session was much improved on the night before. He was still very tense but we were getting there.  By the time we took him in again in the afternoon for a brief walk around while the show-jumps were being built, he was fetching the ball for me, and he opened the chilly bin to bring me the bottle of wine.  I had my horse back.  Kelly Wilson also gave me a lengthy pep talk, along with some much-needed perspective.

My clinic (Tricks & Liberty) at 9.15 on Sunday morning went REALLY well, Hokey was on form and did everything I asked of him.  I had a good size crowd despite being the first slot in an out-of-the-way arena.  So that boosted my confidence somewhat.

​I had a phone chat with the wonderful Jane Pike of Confident Rider before the Top Talent performance.  She gave me some absolute gems of advice but amongst it all these are the bits that really stuck out for me, in that moment:

• ​Be the trainer you want to be.  This was particularly powerful for me in regards to the performance itself, as a reminder that it didn't matter what actually happened on the night, whether he was calm and managed to do all the liberty and tricks as planned or not, it was the way that I dealt with it in the moment that people would judge me on.
• You only have to deal with the NEXT moment.  Self-explanatory really.  
• And a visualisation exercise - any worry you have about things not going well is just your brain inventing something that isn't real.  So if you're going to invent something, may as well invent something helpful. Visualise not only a flawless performance but also visualise yourself 10 mins after everything going really well - picture the detailed surroundings, the sounds, the smells, etc.

The indoor arena at Equidays is huge (40x75) and lined with grandstands.  We stepped through the door and the curtains closed behind us as the music started.  The whole place was positively humming with energy - even I could feel the crowd's presence - and for a horse who is so sensitive to energy it must have been incredibly intense.  I didn't take the halter and rope off when I had intended to, choosing in the moment to keep him attached, and towards the end I just removed the rope (despite my friend Ellie Harrison having helpfully relayed to me a Russell Higgins quote that "doing liberty with a halter on is like making love with your socks on"). 

We didn't get to show off everything we'd intended, but he did the tricks he needed to do, including fetching the wine bottle from the chilly bin.  He was very tense in that arena, and I was incredibly proud of the way he held it together and stayed reasonably connected with me.  Warwick Schiller commented on the complexity of the chilly bin trick, and Dan Steers and Vicki Wilson both commented on the fact that he stayed connected despite his nerves.  Dan Steers said "he was clearly nervous in here, but he was comfortable with you".  

We won $500 and a lovely wide sash for coming third, and another sash for winning overall Fan Favourite.

I really enjoyed being a clinician, teaching comes easy to me and it was amazing to be able to share the positive reinforcement philosophy and techniques with a mainstream audience.  I'm not sure I would say I "enjoyed" performing in Top Talent, but we survived it and even got a pretty good result in the end.  It certainly put me well and truly outside of my comfort zone and it's massively satisfying to have faced my fears and overcome them.

So here's some lessons learned from the whole thing, in no particular order:

1. In terms of the clinics, this was the first time I've ever had to teach/present and train simultaneously. Not a fan. Neither is my horse.  Usually I have a firm rule that when I’m with the horse my focus is 100% on them. Particularly on the Saturday, Hokey wasn’t capable in that environment of parking on his mat for minutes at a time while I talked to the crowd. He was a fidget pants, to put it mildly.  So while he did really well overall, staying connected and demonstrating various behaviours as required, he did get frustrated with me at times when I was talking and waving my hands around etc (potential cues) and not giving him the rate of reinforcement he needed in the moment.  If I were to do this again, I would change the format so that I wasn't multi-tasking.
2. Having a good team around me was essential! I had amazing support from friends and clients around the country, and I had a fantastic team there with me over the whole event helping to keep Hokey cared for, my clinics and rehearsals and performance props organised, and my emotional state as in balance as it could be.  ​They all had their role to play and they were an absolute godsend.
3. ​Don't underestimate the impact of getting a horse off the grass and onto quality supplements to support imbalances and grass sensitivities.  I thought I was managing his diet pretty well already but putting him on a track a week before the event, and feeding Alleviate SOS every day (among other things), made a massive difference to Hokey.  This combined with daily (short) training sessions resulted in noticeable improvement in his ability to cope with "high stress" situations, particularly in the day clinics.
4. The first time to do something like this is always going to be the hardest. Onward and upward.  
5. ​Don't get sick. Seriously. 

I truly felt SO supported throughout this process. All of you who were at Equidays and watched my clinics, asked intelligent questions, came and said hi when you saw me, wished me luck for Top Talent, gave me hugs and generally surrounded me with love and positive vibes.  And everyone who couldn’t be there in person but followed the journey online and sent me your thoughts and good luck messages through private messages and FB comments etc. 

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart xxx

Photo credit: Kelly Wilson