What can you learn from your pictures

Smokin Piece Of Tail - Dragon

I have always used photos and videos to critique myself. When I practice music I record and play back to figure out what I need to work on, I am my own worst critic.

With our horses it is not always practical to get photos and videos all the time but when we get the chance it’s a great tool to use to find out where you need improvement.

A great example of this is when my beautiful mare Dragon and I started in a new discipline.

Dragon caught onto the sport of Barrel Racing much faster than I did so I made a lot of mistakes while starting out with her in this new discipline, which is great because the more mistakes I make the more opportunity there is for me to learn and really get to the bottom of things.

There was a point where her pictures were awful! You could see the whites of her eyes, her mouth was open and she looked worried and in pain.

I looked at those photos in horror and made it my mission to figure out how to be better for her or I would stop altogether because my horses mean far too much to me for that to just be “OK”.

I learned about saddle fit, rider balance and I also ran her bit-less to get myself out of some bad habits I had developed with my hands from getting worried during a barrel run.

As we progressed her pictures got better, her eyes became soft and brown, mouth closed, we no longer had problems blowing out of the turns and because of this she got more confidence and became faster and faster!

I decided to quit while I was ahead, I had overcome some serious challenges and she was running great! Dragon wanted to hold her own against the 1D horses but I was far from a capable 1D jockey. I made the decision to giver her a rest, pop her out in the broodmare pasture and hope for a baby. In that time I am focusing on bringing myself along slower, improving muscle memory with good habits so that I can be the jockey she needs me to be when I bring her back into work.

It is important to me that my horses are happy, not in pain or discomfort and that I am helping not hindering them as a rider.

There are always going to be bad moments, they can slip, things can go wrong and it can just be a bad picture but when you are seeing bad photos during regular runs or rides it’s time to take a good look at what is going on.

Another example of using photos is to see how you are sitting on your horse, are you balanced? Is your saddle balanced? Is your lower leg back or are you sitting in a chair position? Where are your hands? Are you working too hard in the saddle or not enough? If we don’t know, we cannot get better.

Not only can you analyze your position but you can look at your horse too. How are they moving? Are they working correctly? Are they hollow? If not what could you do to help them to work correctly?

It is also great to see photos from a year ago to recent ones. How you have improved, how your horse has improved. The changes in their body, has their topline improved or gotten worse? Has their overall working posture improved for worsened? This way you can narrow down what the issue is, is it injury related? Tack related? Have you been trying a new technique?

I encourage everyone to check out your pictures especially the bad ones. Don’t skip those they are your gold! Really take a good look at everything and watch to see how you can improve in a number of areas just by critiquing yourself. Your horse will thank you!