How many day’s old were you when you thought you made up a new word “Factually” and then googled it and found it in the dictionary as an Ad-Verb. I was today days old “July 16th 2019”. Even though I didn’t invent it (and my brain REALLY wants to take credit for it), it is a GREAT word, I am going to use it in a big way in today’s article.
WHAT FACTUALLY HAPPENED IN YOUR RUN? As in, are you using facts to support what happened?
I am going to point a few fingers here, so tighten up your “sensitivity seat belts”
- Society (that includes me and you) seems to have a tough time sorting out the facts of what happened, without us taking or adding some portion of our personal self into it. We are now allowed to post untruthful facts (especially via social media but also major media outlets) without ANY CONSEQUENCES. YES, NONE.
- Our horse clinicians teach based on opinion & “feel”, not fact. There is zero accountability in our current teaching system and no guarantees.
We have added a super cool overhead visual view to Interval Timing.com this year. We set up cameras around the arena and instead of the camera moving, the horse and rider move around the screen. It isn’t really for sharing with your non-barrel racing friends, as it is very factual.
This view takes should take away any and all interpretations you might be adding into your run.
The Interval Timers tell you exactly how long it took, and the overhead view shows you exactly where you went and now we have REALLY amped it up with the “MY PATH” option, which leaves a yellow line where you went. You can see each footstep, your hand position, your body position and the horses body position through every inch of your run.
This to me, is ground breaking and something everyone needs to see, but I have come up against some interesting thoughts from riders and one person actually vocalized it.
I was explaining our “super cool edition” and dropping my sales pitch. She listened to me and then responded that “Oh I don’t want to see that, I might actually have to take the blame for what happened.” Insert a super awkward look on my face and myself speechless.
There aren’t a lot of times in my life that I am at a loss for words, but this moments was one of them. I think I might have responded with a quick, curt “Interesting.” (which is my go to when I don’t want to say something rude or inappropriate and am at a loss for words).
No one wants to be a “SCAPEGOAT”, ESPECIALLY not your horse.
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1. a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.
Are you blaming your horse for what is going wrong in your run? If so, you have a problem.
Like a huge problem.
Unless you lost all control of your limbs, brain and body during the run, you are the captain, so need to be taking responsibility for how and where the vessel is travelling. If you aren’t the captain, you need to address that stat*, you have much bigger “fish” to fry on the barrel pattern.
This trend seems to be coming from riders interpretation of what is happening, not what is factually happening.
It is an extreme advantage to start basing your barrel racing quantifiable information, and learn to sort out the opinions from the facts.
The best way to start doing that is to pull up the good ole 5 W’s & the H – Who, What, When, Where, Why & How.
Are you using facts to help yourself dissect your run or would you rather put your head in the sand and pretend?
I hope you pick the first of the 2 options 🙂
If you would like to learn the FACTS about how your horse is BUILT TO MOVE and find out how you can take a measuring tape, measure your horse, then build your pattern, click to join us at The Performance Horse Academy – that’s what we do over there.
*Stat is a a term that medical people say on tv shows which means RIGHT NOW. My sister is a BSCN, RN & Charge nurse and she said it is a legit term, not just a made up one, which apparently there are a lot of those on medical shows – which if you really work in the medical profession you HATE all of the inaccuracies on those shows. I make her watch them with me sometimes, it is funny her talking about it – kind like when people think they know about barrel racing and talk about it, but don’t – back