Welcome back to our advice column, Ask Stable Sage, where we answer queries from readers about horse- and life-related issues, especially where the two intersect. Take our suggestions with a grain of salt, or at least one sugar cube. This column is intended for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. 

Have a question for Stable Sage? Email it to coth.advice@gmail.com. We reserve the right to edit your submission for clarity and length, and we promise to keep it anonymous. 

Dear Stable Sage,

I’m an eventer, and I love a good plan. I’ve got a training spreadsheet that takes me from now until THE BIG EVENT, with every trot set, jump school and dressage ride mapped out in color-coded glory. The problem: My horse doesn’t care about my calendar. Last week we lost a shoe, this week our gallop and jump lesson got rained out, and the whole plan feels like it’s unraveling. I’m panicking that if I fall off schedule, we won’t be ready. How do I balance sticking to the plan with listening to my horse?

Type A With a Stopwatch

Dear Type A,

Your spreadsheet sounds beautiful. But here’s the inconvenient truth: Your horse did not get the link to that Google Sheet.

Horses don’t run on our timelines; they run on horse time. And horse time includes things like “mystery body soreness” and “let’s play another round of ‘either my leg is broken or I’ve got an abscess.’ ” None of this was in your carefully crafted plan, and yet here we are.

Now, don’t toss the spreadsheet in despair. It’s a useful tool. But think of it as a compass, not a contract. It points you in the right direction, but you’ve got to be flexible enough to take detours when the horse says, “Nope, not today.”

A wise man named André 3000 once sang, “You can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather.” Horses are famous for taking our best laid plans and pooping all over them. In a way, the unpredictable is actually predictable. You don’t know the details, but you do know there will be curveballs.

So when you build out your calendar, build in a cushion. Some horses are more drama-prone, others are stoic, and their previous track record can suggest how thin or plush that cushion needs to be. Either way, lost time is part of the sport. You can always use an extra walk hack day if you’re ahead of schedule, but you can’t conjure up extra days if you planned yourself into a corner.

And let’s not forget that you, the rider, are 50% of the equation. Pushing through has become a weird, messed-up badge of honor in horse culture, but it should be OK for you to take a beat when you need it. Even if it’s 72 degrees, the footing is perfect, and “cross-country school” is screaming at you from your spreadsheet in highlighter yellow—if you’re sick, exhausted or just not in the headspace to gallop your horse at solid obstacles, the smarter (and safer) choice is to call an audible.

Horses will make you crazy if you don’t approach all this stuff with a little zen. Don’t let The Big Event become your whole personality or consume your whole bank account. Because if it doesn’t happen—and there’s always a chance it won’t—you’ll need something sturdier than a nonexistent refund policy to fall back on.

Progress with horses isn’t linear. It’s a scribble: good days, vet days, rain days and “my horse just pulled his shoe off in the trailer and apparently threw it out the window” days. The spreadsheet gives you structure, but at the end of the day your horse is the one that has to sign off on it.

Your horse doesn’t know what day The Big Event is. He only know how you show up for him today. And showing up with flexibility, patience and a willingness to crumple the plan when needed is what keeps you both sound, in body and partnership.

So keep your spreadsheet. Just make sure you’ve got an eraser handy.