“My mom used to ride, she encouraged to take look, but didn’t pressure me. I just fell in love right away with it. I just think it’s super amazing having a partnership with another animal. It’s super cool. I just love the adrenaline rush. Right when I got on I kind of knew that was my sport.
I love how you can advance up the levels and the connection with my trainer and my horse. Because riding isn’t a team sport I find I have a really close partnership with my horse and that’s what makes it really special for me.
What motivates me is I want to keep getting to get better. As the sport grows in B.C., Thunderbird park facility in Langley is the 2nd best facility in North America. So just how it grows every year, we have better competitors from all over, seeing what I can become is really inspiring. Just keep going with it.
My trainer inspires me the most. She pushes me everyday past the point where I think I’m capable of. She shows as well so it’s really nice for me to watch her in the biggest classes being against international competitors, especially from the States. She motivates me everyday.
Last summer, in one of the derby classics, I made it to the 2nd round and all of the sudden both of us knew we had a shot at winning. I remember in that warm up, her face/expression, that we both knew what we were capable of. That victory lap with her watching from the sidelines is one of the best memories for me.
You definitely go through a lot of plateaus with riding. Definitely coming back from a bad fall last summer. My confidence was pretty shook after that. Especially getting to jump bigger fences again was a bit of a struggle for me. I think overcoming that, literally getting back on the horse was probably the hardest thing for me because everything that I thought knew how to do, I couldn’t do it more. It was very frustrating. My coach was very patient with me.
It was a big class so I was pretty nervous, there was a lot of money, a lot of good competitors. My horse was kind of looking at the fence, I pushed him too hard, I picked the wrong distance to the fence. I ended up coming off of him, nose diving over the jump. Right away I knew something was wrong with my back, something just didn’t feel right, I had a minor concussion as well. It’s embarrassing too in front of all the sponsors. I didn’t realize the rehab process was going to be as well for me. Months of going to the chiropractor and physiotherapist, it’s frustrating because it’s things you literally have no problem doing, all of the sudden are challenges everyday. Even just bending over to tie up my shoes. It was pretty hard but coming back from that was really rewarding.
Just keep going. And having someone you can talk to, whether that’s a coach, trainer, my mom and dad were really supportive throughout the process. Just knowing that eventually it does get better, and you will get back to where you are, you just have to stick with it and not get too frustrated with yourself. Sometimes things are out of your control and it just happens, every athlete goes through something like that.
With anyone going into the sport, you can go into any show or competition with a plan but you don’t always know what your horse is going to do. It’s a 1200lb animal, they have fight or flight instinct. So I think just building the bond with the horse and to keep going with the sport, seeing where it takes you. Sometimes things don’t always go as planned but just deal with the bumps in the road.” -Lauren Shorman, Equestrian.