We leave today for Europe, which meant that my weekend was nuts. Unfortunately the package I ordered from Amazon with 2-day shipping that was supposed to arrive on Wednesday didn’t make it because of weather delays. Even though it was ON THE TRUCK for delivery on Friday. And even though I PASSED THE TRUCK two blocks from my house on the way home. Getting an email a couple hours later saying that it couldn’t be delivered due to “emergency weather conditions” was pretty irritating, especially considering it was 34 degrees and barely misting rain. There was zero impact on travel. Getting an email a few minutes later saying delivery rescheduled to Monday afternoon was even more irritating. Cue some very unhappy and fruitless phone calls after which I still had none of my stuff, so I got to spend all day Saturday driving around town buying everything I needed at the last minute and spending 3x as much money in the process. Ask me how much I love UPS right now.

But I did have time on Friday night to swing by the blogger meet-up, which was fun (and yay – swag). It’s nice to put faces with blogs and names and horses. Sadly that was the only time I was able to meet up with the group the entire time, because see title. Thanks everyone for putting it together, and sorry I couldn’t participate more. Next time! Also I took no pictures of the actual meet-up, because I fail at meet-ups. But I did take this picture of my contribution to said meet-up: a giant vat of queso and some blackberry pear cider. Pretty sure I hit all the major food groups.

After I spent most of Saturday shopping, Brandy and my SO and I went to an indoor cycling charity event and sweated our butts off for an hour to benefit a dog rescue. These are the kinds of things you end up doing on a Saturday evening when you make the mistake of befriending your favorite spin instructor. The venue was a new fancy place that has new fancy bikes that “turn” and lean and show you your RPM’s and your distance and all that kind of stuff. Wizardry and Magic and all that jazz. Really it just means that they’re harder to ride and make your entire body work to stabilize it, thus making your abs hurt the next day.

After our sweaty spin session we naturally had to replace the calories we burned by stuffing our faces with food and drink, then I went home and immediately fell dead asleep. Seriously I don’t even think it was 10pm yet. Sunday was laundry and errands and packing and running by the barn to say bye to this handsome face:

He watched me walk away and it just about broke my heart. I can’t help but wonder if he was watching me leave because he didn’t want me to go, or if he was watching me leave to make sure I was actually gone before he started celebrating his vacation. Whatever. I’ll opt to believe the first one.

And of course now I’m very slowly getting ready to head to the airport. See you in 16ish hours, Brussels! If I’m able to log on and at least post a few pictures I will, otherwise sorry in advance for the silence. I’ll make up for it with lots of pony pictures when I get back. If the weather hasn’t improved by the time I return I’m moving somewhere horrible but warm, like Florida or California.

Adios amigos.

First – thanks to Sprinkler Bandit for asking me to be in her awesome Ammy Hour series! Such a cool idea. If you’re feeling particularly masochistic today, you can go read all about me here.

Otherwise it’s been kind of a boring week for me. I had a jumping lesson on Wednesday night in lovely 60 degree weather that went pretty well, and then tried to do a dressage ride yesterday. It was really cold (38) and I was thinking that if all these other bloggers can talk about riding in 15 and 20 degree weather, surely I could suck it up and handle the upper 30’s. It was also really windy and honestly, it was misery. Henry felt awful, I felt awful, and the whole experience in general was awful. How do you northerners do this? I do not get it. I’m opting out today and bowing down to all those who are obviously tougher than I.

Otherwise I’m just getting all my stuff ready to leave for Europe on Monday. So excited! I think and hope I’ve gotten everything that I need, all I have left to do is pack. It’s actually warmer there today than it is here…

WHHHHYYYY????

And yes, I might have already had the tack shop in Paris put something on hold for me to pick up while I’m there. International tack ho.

In my ramblings the other day about entering horse shows, the cost difference between h/j and eventing came up. I am always kind of floored by how affordable eventing is, having come from jumperland. ***Before I even get started I’m going to insert the disclaimer of “I know it varies for everyone, depending on your personal circumstances” so instead of telling me I’m wrong (because for mine I’m not) tell me how it’s different for you.***

For me personally there’s a huge difference between the cost of a USEF recognized horse trial and an A rated h/j show, but when I say that to eventers they tend to look at me as if I’ve grown a second head. Don’t get me wrong, neither sport is cheap. Nothing about horses in general is ever cheap. But as far as competing goes, in my circumstances, eventing wins the best value award.

Part of it is that eventing is a little more of a no-fuss, no-frills, independent type of sport. They don’t tend to set up elaborate mini-villages with drapes and tables and foliage at shows, they don’t tend to have grooms that you’re paying per day, and they definitely tend to not have a trainer with them every step of the way during a competition. In eventing your trainer cannot help you once you’re in the ring, and there are rules about warm-up and “outside assistance” that foster a you’re-on-your-own feeling at shows. In fact, a lot of them roll their trusty rusty Stanley plastic trunks into their stall spaces, set up their tack hooks on the outside (tack stalls and grooming stalls, pffft), and warm themselves up. It’s pretty darn rare to hear the words “I have to wait for my trainer” come out of an eventer. I’m not saying that makes them better (because god knows some of them could definitely use a trainer), it’s really just an entirely different mindset. They also seem a lot more likely to camp out – I have never in my life heard of anyone legit camping at a h/j show, but no one would bat an eye at a tent at an event. Note: I am not one of those people, I like having a shower and WiFi. They’re also more likely to haul themselves places (therefore making it easier to be so DIY when you’re not trainer-dependent for transportation) which in turn makes it easier for a sad non-trailer-owning person like me to split gas and bum a pretty cheap ride instead of paying a trainer up to $1/mile. So I pulled out some old show bills from my h/j days, one from an A show and one from a local level show, plugged those costs in, then put my eventing costs for similar level competitions next to them, for the sake of comparison.

First lets look at schooling shows, or non-USEF recognized shows:

And then a recognized event and rated h/j show:

A few explanations of my numbers: for the hotel cost I used a flat rate across the board of $50 per night. Obviously if the show is longer it requires more nights in a hotel. Usually I try to share a room with someone so that’s a fairly accurate guess, and in an effort to make it fair I stuck to a standard $50/night rate for all shows. There aren’t a lot of shows close enough to Austin to make it just a day trip, so hotel is almost always a factor. Trailering fees look different because when I was showing h/j I never had the option of tagging along with someone who had their own trailer, therefore I had to pay whatever the trainer charged. Almost all of my eventing friends have their own rigs so it’s a definite cost saver. Also at h/j shows paying a per diem trainer fee wasn’t really negotiable, that’s just how it was done. At events I can pick and choose which days I want trainer assistance (if any). For the sake of fair comparison I kept the trainer fee in the events, even if I wouldn’t necessarily be paying it. All other fees are show fees and therefore concrete, although obviously some events/shows are cheaper or more expensive than others. The ones I chose here for the recognized/rated columns are both what I would call toward the upper end of average, cost wise, for this area.

 

I also didn’t include food costs since that varies, or gas if I drove myself, but I did include a line to mention whether or not some meals/free food are provided by the show to competitors. To me that’s a money saving perk. Feed me.

The potential to win back money exists at some shows too, and is worth considering. Granted I have never won back enough money at any show to really make much of a dent, so to me it’s not much of a draw, but to others it is. What I do think is pretty interesting, and worth noting when looking at comparisons like this, is that events are largely run by volunteers. IMO that helps keep the costs down. On one hand it seems like it would require more manpower in the way of XC jump judges, bit check, etc. But when you consider that most h/j shows are running several rings at a time (and all that that entails) I would bet that the number of people needed comes pretty close to equaling out.

 

As you can see, for me, the savings is pretty substantial. I can do 5 recognized horse trials for what it would cost me to do 2 A rated h/j shows. The same ratio applies on the schooling side –  I could do 5 unrecognized events for what it would cost me to do 2 schooling h/j shows. My reality? It’s 2.5x more expensive to show my horse as a jumper than as an eventer.

Honestly it seems like no matter what the cost is, everyone will always think it’s too much. That’s human nature I guess. Even in triathlon, where entry fees are generally from $70-120ish per race, they constantly lament about how expensive it is while I just laugh to myself. At least at the end of a triathlon you almost always get a medal and cookies… I can’t even imagine how delighted I would be if someone gave me a medal and cookies every time I came out of the ring at a show.

I would be interested in hearing what the costs of h/j vs eventing and rated/recognized vs schooling are like for other people! I’m jealous of those who are are only a short drive away from your show venues and don’t have to pay stall/hotel all the time… makes me miss Maryland.

 

Something interesting happened on facebook the other night when someone tagged me in a comment on a photo. It was interesting because it was MY photo that I took of my friend’s young stallion Diabolo D’Esquelmes a few summers ago here in Texas. Only problem? It was posted by someone I don’t know, and the caption said that it was her young horse Winston. Umm… no.

This really begs the question: what the hell??? Perusing this person’s page and doing a little sleuthing uncovers that many of their photos are stolen.

I really wonder why the heck anyone would do this. This is definitely not a kid playing some kind of internet game because the page can be traced back to a real life adult woman. Are you just inventing a fake internet life for attention? Or are you trying to do something worse and more fraudulent by creating a fake business with a fake reputation and fake credentials? And really – do you think no one will notice? The Global Sporthorses page has almost 2500 likes – what’s going on here?

In case there’s any doubt, here’s more pics I took of DD that day

And pictures of his buddies, Cartier R and Jus D’o. Obviously the same jump and the same venue.

I’m not a photographer, so I don’t mind people using my pictures elsewhere. These are on facebook and have been re-facebooked several times for legit reasons, plus shown up in articles and blog posts. What I do mind is people taking them and using them for fraudulent purposes, lying to people, and making themselves look like jerks on the internet. Someone explain this to me because I don’t get it.