Ever since I was about 10 years old, horse shows have been a HUGE part of my life. I grew up showing horses, and most of my childhood and teenage years were spent away on the weekends competing along the east coast rather than doing normal high school things like attending school dances or football games. During college (and after) I had a horse training business, so I was constantly on the road showing with my customers and their horses.
Thanks to grad school and then this move out to CA, I haven't been actively involved in the horse show community in about 3 years. While living in MI, I did get the chance to go to a few little schooling shows with some young hunter horses I was working with (which was awesome), but I have very prominently felt the absence of this activity in my life.
People who show horses understand this addiction and will sympathize with the withdrawal that I have been suffering from. Non-horse show people (i.e. the majority of the world, ha!) generally just think I'm crazy for putting so much money and time into it. For those who fall into the latter category, this is why I love showing horses:
- Your horse show group is like a second family. It is such a fun community to be a part of! When you're on the road and showing, you eat together, sleep together, work horses together, celebrate together in victory, and console and comfort one another following a difficult ride or unfair or poor placing from the judge.
- I'm competitive (shocker).
- I absolutely love working with people and horses to strengthen their riding and training abilities. Watching people make progress towards their personal goals and then achieve these goals is incredibly rewarding to me.
- There is nothing quite like the feeling of knowing that you just had a spectacular ride or pattern in the ring. Regardless of placing, the sense of pride and accomplishment that you feel is phenomenal. Having a great connection with a horse and executing your task with clear and discrete communication with your mount creates this great ride, and if you aren't a rider, you probably don't understand how awesome this is.
- I love the enthusiasm and competitive environment at horse shows.
I now have the opportunity to get back involved in the show ring as the coach of the Cal Poly Equestrian Team (CPET) and the Cal Poly Dressage Team. This past weekend was my first experience as an IHSA (Intercollegiate Horse Show Association) coach, and it was AWESOME.
We took the western CPET team to their last regular season show at the University of California, Davis's equestrian center. There were 5 college/university teams there competing. We took 17 riders from Cal Poly. Let me rephrase that, we took 17 phenomenal, awesome, hilarious, positive, supporting, encouraging, competitive, kind riders from Cal Poly. And they kicked butt.
The stats:
Hi Point Team both days
Hi Point Rider (Mia) both days
Hi Point Rider (Mia) both days
Regional Champions for the regular season
Qualified to send a team to Semi-finals (the step right before Nationals)
Six Cal Poly team members winning their classes (5 second place ribbons for individual rides)
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| Some of the spoils from the weekend |
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| The whole team with the high point ribbon for day 1 |
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| Zoe hugging Marin after Zoe's win in the intermediate horsemanship class |
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| Kendra showing in intermediate horsemanship |
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| Allisen and Abigail (walk-jog riders) |
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| Riley in walk-jog horsemanship |
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| Jen in walk-jog horsemanship |
Needless to say it was a good weekend! This team is great, and I am really excited about their potential for the National (which, by the by, is in Raleigh, NC this year in May!). It feels really, really, really good to be back in the show ring. Wish the hunt seat team good luck this weekend as we head to Stanford!
Food for thought:
How Nigeria has changed due to oil drilling
We can't feed the world with organic farming
What are you grateful for today?
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