A few months ago I found myself busy settling a couple of calves into our family.
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They are super cute and it’s was a lot of fun, particularly for my kids, to feed them their bottles and make friends.
But, it was alsoMASSIVELY stressful for me.
And I experienced some serious overwhelm.
It turns out I know a lot less about cow care than I first imagined.
My poor cattle friends were harrassed by flow of emails, where I asked some of the most ridiculous questions about how to keep those small creatures alive.
And this process really hit home for me, highlighting the uncomfortable feeling that comes from having animals standing in my paddock and being completely out of my depth.
As a horse trainer who’s been riding since a junior and working with standardbreds since 2001, I am guilty of sometimes assuming that the people who join our standardbred network already know a lot about what I teach.
But I’ve realised through many conversations with other standardbred owners, that this is a failure of mine and of horse trainers in general: we ASSUME people know the basics of horse care and training, or understand the technical terms we throw around each day… simply because this knowledge and skills come second nature to us as professionals.
We forget just how long it took us to learn all of these things and to feel confident as horsefolk.
The truth is, learning how to care for and train half a tonne of animal with a mind of its own, and with very specialised needs, is a learning journey which quite literally spans a lifetime.
We will NEVER know everything about horses.
There will always be a new approach, skill or discipline to discover.
And when it comes to standardbreds, we have an added layer of learning.
Our horses have such unique backgrounds, behaviours stemming from this and often a few quirks to figure out!
My reality check, sitting there Googling like crazy about the many facets of mooer ownership and draining my friendships to exhaustion, is a stark reminderof the value of having people there to lend support and advice.
I can only imagine how hard it would have been NOT to have some knowledgeable friends there to answers my many absurd cow questions and to hold my hand through the process.
Or, worse still, how much harder it would be if the cows I’d brought home turned out to be of a breed which is commonly misunderstood by the greater cattle community and I was left feeling very alone in my decision and unable to access help.
I feel particularly glad that we have the Online Standardbred Club
Because I’d hate for any standardbred person to have to experience the rollercoaster of emotions I felt when I brought our cows home.
Our Online Standardbred Club aims to bring our global community of standardbred lovers into the one place, so we can learn, share, grow in knowledge and confidence together and have a huge network of people we can turn to with things get confusing, overwhelming or challenging in our standardbred journey.
Every single member is important; everyone has something of value to share, which may inspire, teach, or even just help another person in our group to feel like they’re not alone.
I hope you’ll join the gang – we’re going to have a LOT of fun together!
Your resident cowgirl,
Nic
