High School Equestrian Athlete
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
NEW High School Equestrian Varsity Letter!
Monday, April 30, 2012
Oldham Ctny Farm Tour 5/2012
We are so excited the facility will be part of Oldham Ahead's First Annual Oldham County Farm Tour on Sunday, May 27, 2012! The tour will start at Alta Vista at 9:30 am with round pen demonstrations. Demonstrations, picnic lunch, hayride and a shuttle service to (5) of Oldham County's most beautiful farms! View Brochure
Thursday, April 19, 2012
The Coolest Horse Racing App EVER!
Sue & Kenny McPeak's cool new Horse Racing App for the iPhone.
Even if you don't even like horse racing, get this app. Why? Because the McPeak's are what America needs! Entrepreneur spirits with real perseverance and out of the box thinking. They should run for president. Get the app! It's Free!
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Details: Experience the excitement of live horse racing on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch device, wherever you are. Never miss a race again – it’s like having the program in the palm of your hand! Dedicated to fan participation and viewer proliferation of horse racing worldwide!
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Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Spring Bay & On!
CONGRATULATIONS to Jacki Lemastus amazing ride at Spring Bay this past weekend! It was her move up to Training and she ROCKED it finishing 5th! Way to go Jackie!! We are all so proud of you and your accomplishments!
We've all had time off in winter and as the season kicks in it brings into question rider and horse fitness. This is a great article to help us all gauge if we are ready for our season's challenges: RIDE FITNESS
So excited to for all of our students ready to ROCK IT in 2012!
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Stone Place Dressage
We never like to ride when the weather is cold. Most of the time I just want to stay in by the fire place. However these little extra shows where we take the time to practice the parts of the event really pay off at the events. Riding at home is NEVER the same as riding in the show. Most people only perform to 30% of their ability under pressure. Imagine how good the best riders are at home! So putting your self under pressure at these small shows in the off season will always pay off with big rewards later. Some of the best competitors I know I started to put under pressure at a very young age. Now they have no trouble with pressures in the warm up arenas, changes of schedules etc. And most importantly they handle life pressures with a lot less anxiety! I'm proud of Jackie Lemastus today for putting herself out there even though it is not the ideal situation and NOT her favorite phase! Anything you do today is a win!
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Goal party
Congratulations to Kaitlyn Samuels and Jackie Lemastus on receiving the Team Ariatti sportsmanship 2011 sportsmanship award. We love your team spirit!
Monday, January 3, 2011
Goals
So this is my favorite time of the year. I love to review and analyze how to be better in anything. Anyone who has visited my house knows I love self-help books and actually didn't understand why people read anything other than non-fiction for a long time. This time of year everyone has an opinion on how to set goals, make goals and of course attain goals. So I get to read a lot of self help articles, coaching articles, business articles even financial articles. All of these are in the news in January.
There are a lot of similarities in all of the articles; set an attainable goal, measurable goal and give yourself a time line for example. Also remember to set monthly goals that will help you attain your quarterly goals that will help you attain your yearly goals! This is a lot of goal setting!
One year I got so addicted to setting goals that I set a goal for myself every hour of the day and got fixated on the math of goal setting.
Than recently I found some notes from a sport psychologist I use to go to for my horse shows. Of course, my goal oriented parents thought it would help me to compete better. It did and really helped me understand pressures of competing. This man was a very big professional and ended up coaching two gymnastic Olympic teams and many NFL players.
One thing he taught me I think we all need to practice more of; visualization. Very few hip news articles talk about this but it is so useful. First I am not talking about visualizing yourself on your horse. Well yes and no. I am talking about feeling the horse underneath you, smelling the wind as your ride, hearing your breath as you gallop, seeing the jump, feeling your body get into position. You get the idea. Now this is a brain exercise and is hard to do at first so you need to practice this visualization everyday.
For example everyday you need to sit quietly for 10 minutes and think about ONE goal. Than start to see yourself achieving that goal. You might just see yourself holding the trophy, than feel the trophy , than hear your friends scream, than see the cameras flash. That part is easy now visualize the skills needed to get the trophy. For example you need to visualize what the perfect dressage ride feels like. Every transition with the timing right, the perfect place in the arena, your core muscles tight but relaxed. You get the idea.
Now when you hit on something you can not visualize, feel, hear or smell in your imagination (And by the way you need to see this in color.) than you need to work on that particular skill. So let's say you can't feel a perfect canter transition you need to then get your coach to help you and feel one. Than visualize it everyday and practice them as often as is safe for your horse.
Our sport is very difficult because we can not drill our horses like a football player or other singular athlete can. We are working as a team with our horse so we need to know when we can push the horse and when we need to let his body recover. Because of this, visualization is a great exercise. So go sit quietly and start dreaming your dream for real! And remember one dream/step at a time.
There are a lot of similarities in all of the articles; set an attainable goal, measurable goal and give yourself a time line for example. Also remember to set monthly goals that will help you attain your quarterly goals that will help you attain your yearly goals! This is a lot of goal setting!
One year I got so addicted to setting goals that I set a goal for myself every hour of the day and got fixated on the math of goal setting.
Than recently I found some notes from a sport psychologist I use to go to for my horse shows. Of course, my goal oriented parents thought it would help me to compete better. It did and really helped me understand pressures of competing. This man was a very big professional and ended up coaching two gymnastic Olympic teams and many NFL players.
One thing he taught me I think we all need to practice more of; visualization. Very few hip news articles talk about this but it is so useful. First I am not talking about visualizing yourself on your horse. Well yes and no. I am talking about feeling the horse underneath you, smelling the wind as your ride, hearing your breath as you gallop, seeing the jump, feeling your body get into position. You get the idea. Now this is a brain exercise and is hard to do at first so you need to practice this visualization everyday.
For example everyday you need to sit quietly for 10 minutes and think about ONE goal. Than start to see yourself achieving that goal. You might just see yourself holding the trophy, than feel the trophy , than hear your friends scream, than see the cameras flash. That part is easy now visualize the skills needed to get the trophy. For example you need to visualize what the perfect dressage ride feels like. Every transition with the timing right, the perfect place in the arena, your core muscles tight but relaxed. You get the idea.
Now when you hit on something you can not visualize, feel, hear or smell in your imagination (And by the way you need to see this in color.) than you need to work on that particular skill. So let's say you can't feel a perfect canter transition you need to then get your coach to help you and feel one. Than visualize it everyday and practice them as often as is safe for your horse.
Our sport is very difficult because we can not drill our horses like a football player or other singular athlete can. We are working as a team with our horse so we need to know when we can push the horse and when we need to let his body recover. Because of this, visualization is a great exercise. So go sit quietly and start dreaming your dream for real! And remember one dream/step at a time.
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