Truck Driving vs Horse Riding

And the impossibility of both

Brains.

Granted they’re pretty useful at keeping us alive but as far as ‘limiting beliefs' go, they’ve got a lot to answer for.

Say like when I was learning to drive a truck. It was a big one with a roadranger gearbox.

Is that a flex?

Yes it is, and for those not in the truck driving know, take it from me that it’s the most godawful complication of a driving setup you’ve ever come across in your entire life.

It’s like a manual gearbox on steroids... and possibly meth.

Take for example the clutching, it’s a total debacle.

As if clutching to change gears isn’t annoying enough, with a roadranger truck you need to do it TWICE.

So say you’re gearing up, you need to clutch from third gear to neutral. Then clutch again from neutral to fourth.

Then on the way back down, you need to clutch from fourth to neutral, rev the engine (yes you read that right, you need to press the ‘go faster’ pedal when you’re intending to slow down) then clutch again and go down into third gear.

And then, when you realise there are 18 of these awful gears, you’ll start hyperventilating and the quadricep on your clutching leg starts to quiver….

So, that’s pretty much what I learned in my first truck driving lesson and I remember thinking

“Right, well this is something I will never EVER be able to do”

"In fact, I shall watch others succeed and be convinced that they are a totally different species to me… I will not come close, I will not persist, I know now that I will 100% never, ever be able to navigate a full sized truck around traffic”

But I kept going to these lessons… Mainly because I’d requested them from my Dad for my birthday and giving up would not have been possible.

No Sirreee, I'd much rather my Dad thought I had some kind of mental deficiency than him think that I was a giver-upper-er.

So off I went to my lessons week after week.. and eventually, I learned the weird toe tapping dance (and all the other stuff that goes with passing a Big Rig license)…

So, while I barely ever use my trucking skills these days and couldn't remember how to do a ‘half hitch’ if you paid me, I do often wonder about that mental moment when I 100% KNEW I would never be able to do it.

It wasn’t wavering confidence or a childish dummy spit, it was me wholeheartedly believing that I would under no circumstances ever be able to drive that truck, much less pass a truck driving test.

Spoiler alert, I did pass that test (on the first go too!) and I have the thingo on my license that lets me hire any goddamn vehicle I want

But you know what, over the last 12 months I’ve had also that same feeling of intense impossibility with my Recycled Racehorse.

My self chat was ‘Yay for all those people that can turn a racehorse around.. they are clearly a different species to me. I shall not, now nor ever, be able to make this horse remotely rideable… And I’m a dick for ever thinking otherwise’

And off I’d go, clad in my back protector, walking the horse very, very slowly around an enclosed space with my sphincter ready to crush walnuts.

All the while, my brain would be gifting me positive words of encouragement along the lines of

“You are the giantest of fuckwits"

“You have no business riding this horse..BUT…you better either make this work, or figure out how the hell you can justify keeping him as a paddock ornament for the next 20 years”

So I would walk the offending horse for 10 minutes, not die... and quickly dismount breathing a huge sigh of relief.

And, y’know what?

That was only a few months ago…

In fact, I distinctly remember walking Cucumber around the home paddock in October and feeling so incredibly proud of myself for going up ’near the trees’

But this last weekend, as we stormed around our first ‘Official’ Cross Country Course.. I heard the voice of the commentator who incidentally has also coached me in the past saying:

"Something.. something… Cucumber… Wow...GO JEMIMA!!!"

Check this for a ‘game face’ 💪

And even from across paddock, hearing the PA, I could tell her words were a little bit of encouragement and also a little bit ‘Wowsers! She’s actually riding pretty well’

And on that note, can we all spare a moment for our long suffering coaches?

I swear to God, someone needs to start a mental health fund for the teachers of middle aged women who have no concept of their own abilities and are usually riding wholly inappropriate horses.

But let’s circle back to me..

Weirdly enough here’s me with the walnut crushing sphincter only four months ago now dabbling in the ‘Heeeeey… this stuff is really possible’ space.

Yes, I might have eaten shit (twice) at the Lucinda Green Clinic and once again on Monday while filming for her Challenge - but we bloody WON our first EA competition at Ballarat Hunter Trials.

So how bout that?

And yes, it feels nice.. and I'm still amazed that these things are actually possible

But now, devastatingly and because horses will be horses - it seems that Cucumber needs to go out for a spell.

In reality, I guess it should be expected for a horse that raced til he was 8. Thankfully it’s nothing serious (I hope!) it’s just a few little niggles that need a bit of time to iron themselves out 🙏

When I look back on it now, I’m so proud of how far he’s come in such a short time and hopefully by the time Spring rolls around we’ll be back out there picking up where we left off 💪

But folks, please stay tuned because if you thought it was idiotic that I got myself a racehorse to train, then just wait to see what I did next….

The next instalment involves an 11 year old brumby stallion, captured totally wild from the bush…

And what could go wrong with that? 😳

P.S. If you missed the beginning of Cucumber’s story - you can scroll back to the start on this page.