Each month, we will be profiling one of our Strides Student Members, so everyone can get to know each other a little! This month, we’ve chosen Janet Cagle!
I love the different topic every month. Many memberships can get repetitive. It seems like as Amelia evolves on her own journey, and then she shares it with us, and so the content never gets repetitive. The other thing I love about Strides is the community. We are all at different levels and have different objectives, but the support is all the same. Amelia is just as interested in the rider who has lofty dressage goals as she is the rider who wants to enjoy her horse on the trail. The positive approach in Strides is doing more for the sport than any of you all will ever know. Most of us won’t go on to be GP level riders and that’s okay. I love the inclusiveness of all riders at all levels in this group.
All horses are my favorite. I have never met a horse I didn’t like. I love all colors, and I love mares as much as I love geldings. I love the spirit and capacity for compassion that horses have. I have had the most experience with Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds. I had a grandson of Seattle Slew at one time. He was so kind. My current horse, and my forever guy is Dutch. He is a 17 hand, chestnut, Dutch Warmblood by Facet. He also got a late start in life so we are learning together.
What’s your goal for 2023?:
My goal in the next couple of years is bronze. We already have our 1st and 2nd level scores, but I want to bronze with distinction. We are not ready for 3rd level this year so I am hanging out at 1st and 2nd level this year working towards better scores and the flying changes. If someone would have told me 12 years ago when I bought my first horse that I would be riding for bronze someday, I would have said, “that’s impossible.” I was still falling off of mounting blocks!How has Strides helped you?:I started riding late in life. I only had a pony for a very short period of time when I was very young. Not growing up in the horse world, and getting a late start can be intimidating, at least it was for me. I struggled with confidence and comparison. I struggled to understand what was meant when the trainer said things like “inside leg to outside rein.” I would take lessons and I would feel like it was a lucky guess if I heard the trainer say, “that’s right.” I still really didn’t know what I had just done. It’s like living in a foreign country and not speaking the language. Amelia breaks it down to the little things, and what you physically do with your body, and what it looks like if you are doing it wrong, and she shares her own struggles with all of it. I also love that I can go in and rewatch any and all of the videos and I do…all the time. I don’t always retain the information I hear the first time. The other thing I love is when I revisit a lesson, I am at a different level of learning so I always pick up something different, a little nuance that I didn’t learn the first time I watched.
My very first lesson as a 50 year old woman, I fell off the mounting block 4 times, at the same lesson. The next week when I came back for my next lesson, the trainer sent her 13 year old student to work with me.
What achievement (with horses or not) you most proud of?:
When I started riding at 50, I bought a 10 year old mare with a 5 day old baby by her side. I didn’t know anything about horses so I paid a teenager who grew up with horses to come teach me something new every day. I am talking about the basics of feeding, bathing, picking up the feet… When the baby horse was 3, I found Western Dressage. That was in 2014. I started watching all the classical dressage videos I could find at the time, and I started applying all that I could. That’s how I started my baby horse. When she was almost 4, I heard about a Western Dressage Futurity. I signed up. Being a green horse person, I had no idea that futurities were a big draw for breeders and trainers. I was neither. I just had a young horse that I wanted to learn how to start using dressage methods. I worked toward the futurity, and when the ride times were posted my first thought was, “what were your thinking?” My second thought was “you are going to look like a fool.” It was my husband who said, “you have already done the work, just go have fun with your horse.” I am so glad he said that, and I am so glad I listened. That day, I didn’t watch anyone else ride, I was the last rider. I had no idea how anyone else did. They were only placing the top 10 rides, and I had no expectation of being a top ten. You can imagine the emotions when they called our name as the winners of the futurity. My knees buckled. I had never won anything in my life. Not one blue ribbon ever. The first horse I bought, the first horse I trained gave me my first ever blue ribbon. I don’t think I am any sort of amazing trainer, and I am not the best rider by any means, and I don’t ever share this story to brag. I am always happy to share it only to impress upon everyone that anything is possible. We get so caught up in our own heads and we focus on our limitations instead of the possibilities. This was a huge lesson for me in that area.
I don’t have the years of experience and the hours of cheeks in the seat that most riders have but, I am a good student. I think I have made up for the lack of experience by being very intentional. I treat every moment like a lesson, I have a plan for every interaction with my horse. And I don’t mean to sound like I am rigid about it but each time I walk up to my horse I am teaching him how to act, how to treat me, how to respect, how to work and how to have fun.
Janet’s Thoughts for You and a special link:
I hope that anyone reads this comes away with the idea of what is possible for them. It’s not the pedigree of our horse or the number of years in the saddle that determines our possibilities. Our only dependency is knowing our hearts desire, and our willingness to do the work. I coach so many women who stopped dreaming, stopped entertaining a hearts desire. In 2018 I started coaching women how to set goals and create outcomes in every area of their lives. Many of my students ended up losing the weight that had always weighed them down, some found the relationship of their hearts desire but one of my favorite stories is of one of my students sitting in my workshop with tears swelling in her eyes. The workshop brought up her hearts desire of owning a horse and camping on weekends and trail riding all over the state. The workshop brought up all the things that she thought was only possible for the people who were already doing it. She did not see it for her. She could not see how she could even afford any of it but guess what? Every single one of her dreams, she has brought into reality. All of them. I am the host of The 10-Minute Mind Shift Podcast and I give bite sized knowledge nuggets to help you achieve your goals, whatever they are.
