Kaylie Hanson dives deep in conversation with Equitopia founder, Caroline Hegarty.
Enjoy hearing about Caroline’s back story; what led her to create Equitopia; and what she aims to achieve with the community for horses and humans.
Here’s a short snippet of the conversation. Kaylie asks Caroline about her personal expectations from horsemanship. Here’s what she responded:
” You know, when I got my first horse – he was very athletic – and I had dreams of being a Grand Prix showjumper. And then I had dreams of being a Grand Prix dressage rider. And the reality is, my expectations were far too high for my skill level, my experience, my access to resources, and really just for just having one horse.
And so I think the best advice I can give to anyone is to set expectations that are realistic, and to just be mindful and look for the joy in the time that you spend with your horse, regardless of what they can do for you. Because if you can get to that elemental level of just joy from being around them, which is what I had in the first place.
As a six year old, I had no desire of anything – I just thought they were absolutely beautiful. I loved horses, just for the sake of loving horses. I had no expectations of them.
And it was only you know, as I got more into the social element and a little bit of competition, that these other things were projected onto me and I accepted them.
But now I’m back full circle. And I come to these horses that I have today – and I’m just amazed being around them, watching them. You can learn so much for just watching them on a daily basis. See how they live their lives, see how they interact with each other. It’s just such a wonderful thing. And you can gain so much joy and peace from it.
In these lives that we currently live that are super busy. We’re inundated with social media – inundated with all kinds of pressures and stresses. And it would be great if if that was not part of our horse life. If we deliberately look at our horse life and say, I want this to be the enjoyable, no expectations, no pressures. I want this to be a source of joy in my life because it will reflect in your horses reaction as well.
Listen to the full interview, by clicking the image above – or on the Equitopia podcast on Spotify.