As the spring season rolled around, Lainey Ashker was preparing for a busy 2020. She had dressage shows and horse trials on the calendar leading her into the summer and then the fall.
But then the coronavirus pandemic happened, and everything came to a screeching halt. Lainey, a five-star event and FEI dressage rider, used this blip on the show season to her advantage.
“I think the whole quarantine period was actually the best thing to ever happen to my horses,” she explained. “It gave me the opportunity to train my horses and not just get ready for the next level or the next show.”
While being stuck at home with nowhere to go, Lainey dug deep into her training with each horse in her fleet. It shifted her mentality away from rushing too quickly to make minor changes in her horses in time for the next horse show to instead focusing on the bigger picture.
“Honestly, I said ‘screw it, I’m just going to train my horses,’” Lainey explained. “I’m going to breakdown the movements. The horses are going so much better for it.”
When horse shows finally began to pick up again at the start of summer, Lainey began to reap the benefits of this new mentality in her training.
“Even in the winter season, when we get a break, it’s not that much time,” Lainey said. “You always feel like you’re rushing. Unless you really take time off, I always feel like I’m trying to prepare for the next show, and then the next show…”
So Lainey decided to take her time, both with her younger horses and one coming back from an injury. She said her recent results in the show ring speak for themselves.
“All that training, by taking the time to do it right and not just get ready for the next thing, I never felt like I had to play catch up,” she said. “I took my horse Patrick, who was coming back from surgery, and I felt like I could slowly leg him up to his fitness. Now I can say he has a solid base and foundation, and is confident in his body.”
She also used this method with her clients and students, and was able to recruit more during the pandemic.
“I had to think out of the box,” she said. “I feel like I made a lot of positives out of a really negative situation.”