Samara Heinrichs Prak

2017 was a rough year for a lot of people. Natural disasters have driven millions of people from their homes. Death has affected many of us, both from disease and terror attacks. Families have been ripped apart. It's a year most would prefer to forget. And yet, one is forced to look forward to the upcoming year.  I recently finished another inspirational book that I felt fitting to reflect on as we bring this year to a close. Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath is a book challenging us to consider the advantage of being an underdog, to break free from the seeming shackles of suffering and adversity. "We spend a lot of time thinking about the ways that prestige and resources and belonging to elite institutions make us better off. We don't spend enough time thinking about the ways in which those kinds of material advantages limit our options. Vivek Ranadiv é  stood on the sidelines as the opposing teams' parents and coaches heaped abuse on ...

I can't speak for anyone else, but I know from my life how easy it is to slide into complacency. This can be as trivial as procrastinating vacuuming the house, or that To Do list that just keeps piling up. The proverbial "sweeping it under the rug" syndrome. We're all guilty of this but laziness just feels so good sometimes. Let me put this in horse world context for a minute. This is that liminal time between horse shows where you've finally recovered from the long summer campaign and you need to ramp up for the onslaught of the spring circuit. Merriam - Webster provides an excellent definition of liminal: liminal  :  of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition  :  in-between ,  transitional This is really the difference between losing and winning. It's that liminal time between show seasons where you decide if you want to reach the next level in your training, or if you're just going to coast along until spring hits and...

Well, here I am, 204 days later, waiting for my winter tires to be put back on my car. Where does the time go? It was May 1st when my friend Kim encouraged me to start blogging. I haven't been the most diligent, but it's been quite a summer. I started out this season making some big goals and looking back on the past seven months, I would say those goals were met and surpassed. My goal coming back from California was to compete in the Spruce Meadows International ring. More specifically, the Nexen Derby that takes place on the Sunday of the National tournament. Not only was that accomplished, I finished in the top ten in both the Nexen Derby and the Sunlife Derby during the North American tournament. It would seem that I enjoy going off cliffs. Humour aside, it has been a year of firsts for me. My first year competing in regional and national standard grand prixs in the states. My first year competing in the International Ring. My first year winning a class at the Spruce Me...

The silent killer. We all know what it's like to deal with show nerves, or anxiety. That happens most days of the week, regardless of how well you've prepared, what ribbons have already been won, or how good/bad your warmup went that day. But then we get to the weekend and what I like to call "White Pant Syndrome". Everyone knows what I'm talking about. You've made it through a whole week practically unscathed, but Sunday roles around and you have to put on those white pants again. What is it about wearing whites that does people in? I was living in Arizona years ago and I remember a particularly bad few weeks of horse shows. I was getting around, perhaps learning more about what I shouldn't be doing, than how to do things correctly. Needless to say, consistency wasn't exactly on my side, but it was the Sunday classes that did me in. Two weeks in a row I donned those white pants... and ended up eating dirt. I specifically remember being told that I...

I had someone tell me recently that I should write a blog about chips. Sadly, this was based solely on the fact that we seem to have a dill pickle chip obsession at the barn. So much so that we're planning a blind taste test at some point to choose the best brand of dill pickle chips. With all that in mind, bear with me and I'll somehow relate my recent trip to Ireland, potatoes, life and dill pickle chips into one blog. Ireland is beautiful. For those of you who haven't been before, I highly recommend it. It's green, has gorgeous views, very friendly people and plenty of potatoes. One of the first questions I was asked upon my arrival home was if I'd eaten my share of potatoes on the trip. I can't say that I did, but the fish and chips were very good. The highlight of the whole trip for me was watching the pony jumpers at the Royal Dublin Horse Show. I've always been a pony kid at heart (okay, really I'm still the size of one), and took great deligh...

One of the greatest challenges a rider can face is show anxiety. It can be as mild as a little nervousness at the in-gate, or as crippling as the fear that causes you to freeze when you’re halfway through a class. The mental training it takes to overcome this fear can be infinitely more important than any exercise you can jump at home. I think everyone who rides horses must go through a period of learning how to deal with these nerves if they’ve been competing long enough. I sure did. When I started show jumping as a kid, fear wasn’t a huge factor. You went to the jump and you jumped it, which seemed simple enough. But then it got hard. I started competing on a horse that stopped and it taught me to freeze. My brain would just shut off when something went wrong. I fell off multiple times and struggled to figure out what was going on. I ended up in a low place and felt like I couldn’t ride. The next horse that I rode was a blessing in disguise. He was a very spooky six-year-o...

Ten days later and it seems a little surreal. For all that time spent training, preparing, and getting ready for the derby, 177 seconds in the ring passed by in the blink of an eye. For those of you who've always thought that people who do derbies are a little crazy... we probably are. Funny enough, it wasn't really the bank that I thought would be hard. The morning of the derby was when someone reminded me we had to jump the double liver pools, which was when I actually realized what I was in for. The worst moment for me was standing at the gate waiting to walk. Once you're out there in the routine of walking a course and making a plan, it gets easier to remember that it's just another day. Cantering at the first jump made everything else disappear.  This is going to sound very odd, but my "Social Media Correspondent" Bridie insisted I had to write about it, so here it is: I have the strangest thoughts as I'm on course competing, almost as though ...

It's been a couple weeks since my last blog, but I haven't had a lot of spare time recently. This week has been a week of firsts for me. I participated in my first FEI jog at Spruce Meadows this past Tuesday. The following day I competed in the 1.45m Recon Metal cup, finishing in ninth place, my first ribbon in the FEI division at Spruce Meadows. Friday was a big day for me. I stepped foot on that hallowed ground that is the Spruce Meadows International Ring for the first time. This has been a lifetime dream and such an incredible feeling to have reached it. As amazing as all of that has been, I think my next journey will be even more exciting, when I embark on yet another "first" experience. Tomorrow I am jumping off a figurative cliff and tackling the bank in the International Ring. And will that ever be the experience of a lifetime. For the incredible people I have in my life that have supported me every step of the way, thank you. I have no idea what the e...