Several weeks ago, Nubble came up lame. She has struggled with arthritis, and we will work diligently with our vet and bodyworker to make her more comfortable. I have every hope that, in time, she will feel better and we can continue our journey together.

I hate to admit this, but one of my immediate reactions was disappointment. We had been working so well together. Pippa Callanan was coming back in a few weeks, and I had been looking forward to sharing what we had built, to taking the next step. And then, the way these things go, the step did not happen. I found myself standing in the barn with a lame horse and feelings I am not proud of but will tell you about anyway.

I was jealous of Justin.

He has multiple horses. Talented ones. Horses that, through his commitment and consistent effort, are coming along well and offering him the kind of progress in horse training that makes you want to get up in the morning. And there I was with Nubble out of work, with Joey and Revel waiting in the field, horses who, in my discouraged state, felt like more problem than possibility. Joey with his balance issues. Revel with his clear preference for exerting as little energy as possible. I did not want to spend my time managing those challenges. I wanted to progress. I wanted what I had with Nubble.

I share this not because it reflects well on me but because I suspect it reflects something human, something many of us experience whether we’re working with horses, building a business, raising children, or simply trying to move forward in life.

Discouragement has a way of narrowing the field.

Everything looks harder than it is. The horses in front of you seem like the wrong horses. The timing is frustrating and inconvenient. The whole enterprise can begin to feel quietly futile.

What I did next was not glamorous. It was simply what I could do.

I went to work.

I put time in with Joey. And at first, something good happened. He was soft. There was a new quality to our connection, and I felt the first flicker of genuine excitement about where we might go together.

Then last week it fell apart.

The softness disappeared. He started bracing through his neck, getting twisted and tight in his body. My reaction? Disappointment. Frustration. That degree of despair that I was never going to get anywhere with him and that the whole setback had been a detour leading nowhere.

Fortunately, I had enough sense to ask for help.

I asked Justin to ride him.

After getting a feel for Joey, Justin gave me a few specific things to work on. Simple things, as the most useful things in horsemanship usually are. They made an immediate difference. But honestly, what made the biggest difference was not the technical instruction. It was that Justin had taken the time to show up, to watch, and to care about what I was working toward.

That made all the difference for me.

Here is the part I did not see coming.

Not only did that session renew my excitement about Joey, it sparked something I had not anticipated. I found myself wanting to ride him with Pippa, the very clinic I had been mourning because Nubble could not be there. And then, almost without noticing, I began to enjoy my time on Revel. He started offering more. I started receiving more.

Something had shifted, though I could not tell you exactly what, when, or how.

I have seen this pattern enough times in my work, and in my own life, to know that it is not an accident. Setbacks have a way of redirecting us toward things we would not have chosen but sometimes needed. The narrowing of discouragement, if we can stay in it long enough without giving up, sometimes turns out to be a focusing.

The roller coaster does not stop. It never does.

That is not a reason for despair. It is simply the nature of horsemanship and life: progress and regression, lameness and soundness, discouragement and unexpected joy, often in the same week.

Maybe even the same day.

The invitation is not to get off the ride.

It is to stay on it with your eyes open and, when it gets hard, to have the good sense to ask someone you trust to take a look. ~ Paul