Author: Amanda C

The haul up to Greenwood on Friday took us 4 hours, and the borrowed truck (thanks Erin!) and trailer made the drive like champions. We unloaded, found our stall in the very cozy tent stabling, unhooked the trailer, and then tacked up Henry to go explore the property.

He was a little tense and neighed a couple times, but settled ok. I mainly did lateral work and down transitions to loosen him up and keep his brain quiet… I didn’t see a point in picking on him too much since the goal was to try to just keep him relaxed. I mainly stuck to the SJ warmup area since it was empty, then walked over to the dressage warmup (the upper level horses did dressage on Friday so it was bustling) and he bug-eye stared at the dressage arenas for a while. This was his third event ever, and the first time he’s ever shown at a place where he had never been before.

He got a bath and some hay, then I set off to walk XC. My friend Amy gave me the most amazing circus pony cup, which is now my new official Course Walk Pimp Cup. Since it’s obligatory to walk the course with a cider in hand, you might as well do it in amazing style.

Side note: the Pimp Cup still needs a name, if anyone out there is feeling creative. She’s awfully pretty to just be called Pimp Cup.

Once I found the XC start box (I’ve never been to this facility before, and it’s huuuuuuge) and set off on my course, I felt pretty good about it in the beginning. The first half of it was in the woods, and the jumps were all pretty simple and little. The first one of any substance was 6, a log oxer, but I knew it would ride just fine as long as we kept coming forward to it.

There was a little mini Trakehner at 8 that I thought he might look at, but he’s jumped a bigger one before with no issue so I figured – same deal – just keep coming forward and it’d be fine.

The second half of the course is what really made it a beefy BN. After the Trakehner we popped out at the top of a hill in a big field, which was pretty visually impressive. We had to make a hard right down the hill to the water, which was just asking for a runout, then a couple strides out of the water over a rolltop. Henry is good about water but still, this was going to require an aggressive ride because it was just so visually imposing as we came down to it.

There were a few more simple fences after that, then a long gallop up a big hill and over a log, after which there was a sharp left and a fairly short approach to the dreaded banks. 13 was a down bank, about 2′, then 3 bending strides to 14, an up bank. That’s a pretty technical question for BN. It’s a REALLY technical question for a BN horse with a history of hating down banks. This is where I started to pee myself a little.

Then it was down the big hill to a simple hanging log… but 4 bending strides after the log was another down bank. You gotta be kidding me right? Two down banks on BN, both of which are close enough to another jump to make it a technical question as well. Not only that, it went from light to dark and after the down bank was a fairly short approach to a fence that had trees around it in such a way to make it pretty good test of steering (I called it The Decapitator). Continue peeing on oneself and wonder why the hell I came to this mini Rolex BN course.

After that it was a little bit of a gallop to the last, a cute little fence decorated with buckets and plastic shovels and flamingos.

I pretty much chugged the rest of my cider at this point out of stress, walked the course again, peed myself over the down banks some more, then wandered around and looked at some of the 2* fences to make myself feel better.

Then I wandered back and walked the stadium course, which at first I thought was set to BN height but figured out it was actually set to Novice. So at least THAT would look simple and tiny.

The course looked nicely designed and flowed well. It was in the front field right next to the road so I thought that might be a little bit of an issue but stadium is our easiest phase so I just walked it once, made a plan, and put it in the back of my mind so I could continue stressing about the down banks instead.

After a graze and some dinner I said goodnight to Henry, told him to put on his Big Boy Pants for the weekend, then was off to stuff my face and eat my feelings.

Tomorrow – dressage and stadium…

By the time most of you read this Henry and I will be on the road, on our way to Greenwood for our second HT of the season. It’s a 3-4 hour drive (or so the map says, I’ve never been) but he’s got a full hay net, I’ve got cheddar popcorn, and that’s really all that either of us require. We had one last dressage lesson last night, in which we played with rein back-to-canter for the first time. Hens thought that was great fun. He was much less enthusiastic about the subsequent canter-halt idea.

He also got to test out his fluffy new dressage girth, which he seemed equally unappreciative of.

Since he was in such a great mood I decided to give him a bath.

I asked him what he thought about that too, so I could tell his readers, but he just flapped his lips and ignored me.

On Wednesday I made the mistake of going back through a couple years of video from Greenwood to get an idea of the XC course and found that they have not one but TWO down banks. For someone on a horse who hates them, and considering we picked up a stop last fall at one, I am not excited. Now I’m dreading it a little and really hoping we can get it done. I chatted with Jumping Trainer about it and we devised a strategy, and more importantly – a mindset. We’re goin down for real. GDFR.

I’ll be playing this song on repeat all weekend until Henry is like “Holy crap, FINE, I get it, I’ll jump down, just please god turn off the Flo Rida!!!”. Seems like a totally legit riding and training method to me. Whatever works.

Plus I got a new poo cart, and I feel like it’s impossible to have a bad weekend when you’ve got a new poo cart.

This is a subject I’ve been considering writing about for a long time, but never could seem to quite organize my thoughts well enough. Take a look around horse shows these days and an overwhelming majority of what you see is very thin girls on very fat horses. I never could figure out why the “ideal” rider shape was rail thin with mile long legs, and the “ideal” horse shape was fat as a tick.

When I saw this blog post on Horse Nation yesterday, I thought the author really had some great points. The line “Who made me believe that the most beautiful part of me is my negative space?” is pretty poignant. I was lucky enough to show in the jumpers as a junior so I didn’t feel the same pressure that I know the equitation and hunter girls felt in regards to being thin, but I think that learning to love our bodies as they are – thin or not – is something that every woman struggles with at some point. I will never be rail thin and I’ve never really felt the compulsion to be, but I know exactly what the author is talking about regarding body shaming, and she’s right.

It also bothered me a couple weeks ago when this article about Selena Gomez’s recent weight gain was popping up all over facebook. I’m pretty disappointed that we, as a culture, would call that fat. Why do we think that skeleton thin and bony is what looks good? It’s not strong. It’s not healthy. Why aren’t strong and healthy our paramount goals, regardless of what size it comes in? I’d be pretty thrilled if I could ride as well as any of these ladies:

And yet to hear people talk about it from the horse perspective (in the hunter ring at least), there is no such thing as too fat. Obese hunter after obese hunter plods around the ring these days, usually looking tired and winded by the end of an 8-10 fence course. A fit horse is seen as a negative thing in the hunter world, because a fit horse is hard to make tired, and a tired horse is a quiet horse. How did this sport get so far from it’s roots of foxhunting, where a fit, healthy, athletic creature was required and a tired horse was dangerous? Of course there is the saying that fat and chrome can hide a multitude of conformation “sins”, especially to the less educated eye, so I suppose that has a lot to do with it.

I can’t really speak to any of the other horse sports outside of h/j and eventing because I haven’t participated in them enough to understand what their outlook is or where their prejudices lie. It has been a gradual process, and still one that I have to consciously make, to get my eye re-tuned to being ok with seeing a hint of rib on my horse. Or in the case of the truly fit event horse – seeing lots of ribs. For some reason we get programmed to think that a horse in good shape is a horse who has a liberal coating of fat, and yet we see a rider with a little bit of fluff, or even just a lot of muscle, and immediately assume they’re lazy and out of shape. We think truly fat ponies are adorable (“give them cookies!”) and average sized people are repulsive (“put the fork down, fattie”, which I have actually heard from another spectator sitting ringside at a hunter show). Why? What makes us programmed that way?

In reality, a horse that is healthy is one that is fit, well cared for, and well conditioned for his job. His bones and tendons are strong, his muscles are toned, he can easily carry himself and his rider around and do his job without becoming excessively labored, and he has the stamina to perform the tasks we set in front of them. An obese, un-fit horse is none of those things… he is more prone to injury and more prone to sourness. On the same token, a rider that is healthy is one that is strong enough to help the horse rather than hinder it, strong enough to keep a proper position, and has the stamina to not “peter out” by end and leave the horse to do it’s job on it’s own. We are both athletes, we need to have the same expectations of each other. Weak and unfit is not okay, whether it’s too thin or too fat. The size of your breeches is just a number, and seeing a couple ribs on a horse doesn’t mean it isn’t in top condition. We both need to be healthy and strong, for each other, and at the end of the day that’s what really matters.

I have a lot of sympathy for the photographers and videographers that try to make a living shooting horse shows. I know there’s a lot of overhead, the equipment costs are astronomical, and it seems like everyone and their brother owns a decent DSLR these days. I try to support our local photographers and videographers as much as possible. Even if there isn’t media that I head- over-heels love, I’ll try to at least buy something.

The photographer and videographer for the event this coming weekend both offer pre-order packages, which I was pretty excited about, thinking I could save some money that way. Then I opened the emails and did some math, and to pre-order photos and video would cost $250. That’s more than my entry fee was.

I’d love to support them, I really would, but at that point I’m priced out of the market. Now I just have to hope that they actually manage to get some media of me, that it’s decent, and then see if I can pony up the money after the fact for whatever sliver of it I can afford. Usually one digital image costs me $50 which means that I really can only justify buying one, maybe two if I’m feeling particularly rich that day and if they happened to get some pictures of me (since I’m not a pre-order I’m not priority, so sometimes there’s nothing). But like I said, I understand their struggle, so I generally just grumble a little then buy something anyway if it’s halfway decent. That bums me out not only because I’m possibly missing out on pictures and video, which I love, but it also means that I may or may not actually end up giving them any money at all. Then we both lose.

I kinda miss the one photographer from the local h/j shows that charged a low fee of $15 per digital file for a small facebook quality photo. It certainly wasn’t suitable for anything else, but that’s all I need them for so I’m happy. I could buy several of those, and always did. Sadly, I’ve never seen anyone else offer an option like that.

 

 

 

 

Despite all this, I don’t really know what the answer is. Their struggles are real and I understand that, but so are mine. In a sport that is already so expensive, it’s just not feasible for me, and probably for most people, to spend more on media than they do on entry fees. I’m convinced there’s got to be a middle ground. I want to help them out and feed their business but at these prices it sadly becomes impossible.

Since apparently Texas has decided to emulate Seattle this spring and turn our arenas into lakes, I haven’t ridden my horse since last Thursday. That’s not generally such a big deal, Henry does fine just sitting around. It is, however, much less ideal when you’re leaving for your biggest event to date in a few days. And you’re going alone. No barnmates, no trainer. To a place myself and my horse have never been. Did I mention my division is totally stacked with very experienced and nice horse/rider combinations? Someone somewhere is laughing at me for thinking this was a good idea, and now probably all of you are as well. It’s ok, I’m laughing at me too.

Also because I’m in the lowest of lowly smurfs division, my ride times are all late. I’m ok with that on Saturday but it’s going to suck on Sunday when after XC I have to drive 210 miles home, drop off the horse and the trailer and my stuff, then take the rental truck back to the south side of town. We’re going to choose to look at this as an ADVENTURE! Because what other choice is there? And it’ll be fun anyway. Hopefully.

Since I haven’t been able to ride, I’ve delved knee deep into my first Charles de Kunffy book “Training Strategies for Dressage Riders”. There’s a lot of information crammed in there. If you’re the kind of person who loves philosophy and extreme detail, this is the book for you. I’m finding it very informative, but it’s definitely not light reading. I’m about halfway through and have two typed pages of quotes, plus there’s a a few sections that really are worthy of being quoted in their entirely. Especially the pages on punishment, gadgetry (particularly draw reins and tie-downs) and the horse as a partner. There’s an entire chapter on insubordination of the horse to the rider that I feel like should be required reading for anyone who gets on a horse.  Other things though – there’s so much detail and intricacy that my brain can’t deal with it for more than 15 minutes at a time. I have to read a little, then give it time to sink in, then read more. There’s lots of cool charts and tables though.

Hopefully today we can at least go for a road hack, then we’ll see what the rest of the week brings.