This weekend, I got the new Dover catalog in the mail. It's not just any catalog...it's the "Elite" edition, and it's HUGE. Like any good horse person, I immediately sat down on the couch to look at it. I looked at every single page, despite the fact that I've seen most of these products dozens of times in other catalogs. But that didn't matter...THIS catalog was new, so every page deserved a thorough going-over. Riding breeches for schooling and for showing, show shirts, fleece pull-overs, polo wraps, wool coolers, cotton coolers, brush boots, bell boots, belts, reins, bridles, gloves, medications, supplements, whips, spurs, saddles, saddle pads, etc. There are too many products to name! The combinations are endless...the possibilities are endless! Well, depending on how much money you have available.
I often find myself reading these catalogs and picturing myself using the products, putting them on Obe, riding in them - rolling the wheel barrows, wearing the scarves, strapping on the spur straps, putting my feet in the stirrups. Even though I don't have the budget to purchase everything I imagine purchasing, it's the act of imagining it that gets me excited. Simply thinking of all the possibilities makes me giddy!
I do the same thing reading books about riding and training. Right now, I'm working through three books by Paul Belasik and two by Mary Wanless (I know, I know...five books is an insane amount, but that's how I roll). In every chapter I find something that I connect with powerfully - and I begin to imagine me and Obe performing the perfect flying change, half-passing with HUGE steps across the arena, getting to do a victory gallop. And in the imagining of these things, I get excited! I've never done a victory gallop...our half passes are stilted and uneven, our flying changes are more often than not accompanied by bucking. But, I can imagine all these things into perfection - not some pressure-laden, fearing-failure kind of perfection, but a picture that drives me to work harder and tune in a little more to my horse. I love that! The possibilities are endless!!
