Sesenta Anos - Endurance Race - Day 1 - 2018

Here is the GoPro Footage of Sesenta Anos Endurance Race - Day 1.

The highlight of this ride is that this is the most well behaved Lasair has ever been at a race. He was super calm and smooth going out, he let people pass him, he passed others nicely. We took first place at this race and everything went well.

I was very proud of him at the end of this race. It was like all our years of hard work finally paid off and I finally had a good horse.

This all ended the next day. It seems like we can never have a victory without a matching failure.
Day 2 Race was a totally different story. You'd think he'd be calmer and better behaved the second day…but no…this day was different. He was almost the worst he's ever been. We followed the ribbons into the stream bed and had to carefully pick our way through the rocks. A huge group of front runners found an alternate route above us, on a nice trail, and flew by us. This triggered Lasair big time and he went into full blown, fire-breathing dragon mode. I had to pull him off the trail several times to try and regain his head. Even though we ended up in 3rd place for this race, I felt completely defeated. It was like all our progress the past several years had been wiped away in this one ride.

Today, I finally made sense of it all.

I shouldn't feel like he had regressed because of Day 2. This behavior has always been a part of him and it used to be all of him. That is his default. Day 1 was the abnormality. Day 1 was the improvement. Just the fact that we had Day 1 proved that he was improving. Day 1 was never a possibility before…now, it's a reality. It's just that it's not his norm yet…not his default yet. That just means he needs more time and more practice to choose Day 1 behavior vs Day 2 behavior.

I'm reminded of the Fable of the Two Wolves Within Us:

"An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life:
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
”It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil–he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

This fight is eternal, but the one that dominates is the one we feed. So instead of seeing Day 2 as a failure…I now see that I had Day 1 with the Good Wolf and Day 2 with the Bad Wolf. Whereas in the past, the Good Wolf was never present at a race. This is a huge improvement. The problem is in how I see things. I think that success should be linear…that it should be logical and make sense. But that's not how it goes. There are ups and downs, twist, turns, hidden surprises and spirals. Sometimes it looks as if we're going backwards, but we're not. Just have to be more patient, have more faith, and keep on keeping on. Lasair is an extremely willful and proud horse, it's not easy working with such a partner…but it's worth it.

I have spoken to several other riders that have told me that for some reason, their normally sane and reliable horses were fire-breathing dragons on Day 2 as well. Maybe it was something in the air.

So I will focus on Day 1. This is the first video where you see him behaving so nicely in a race because it's the first time he's ever done so. Unfortunately, it also makes for a very boring video…but it means a lot to me. This is what I've been aiming for all these years and this is what I need to hang on to. I can't let Day 2 deter me or take away from Day 1. He must be allowed to have bad days without me getting so overly dramatic, throwing up my arms and giving up entirely.

So. Here's to Day 1.