Blogging is exhausting, which explains our 1-year hiatus. But now we're back and ready to go. Since blogs are self-indulgent and narcissistic by nature anyway, I might as well unabashedly grasp that particular brass ring without subterfuge. I am writing to tell you about me.

I entered my first horse show last weekend at Eventful Acres, an equestrian facility about an hour's drive away. It was a 2-Day Horse Trial, which is a form of eventing. I've been training for this for a couple of years so it was quite a thrill. I entered with Vegas, the Flying Tomato (so dubbed by our trainer because of his enthusiasm for the cross country phase of the contest).

Eventing consists of three disciplines: dressage, cross country, and stadium. At this competition, stadium came before cross country, but dressage remained first. I was nervous going in because dressage takes so much precision and is, in my opinion, the most difficult of the three. Here's my go. The video is a little jumpy and seems to be running a little fast, so I wasn't scooting quite as quickly as it looks. I also added the subtitles to describe the movements just before they happen. The discipline is judged (by the people in the box at C) and, generally speaking, you are judged on the regularity of the gait, smoothness of transitions between gaits, and the geometry of your riding (executing circles precisely, for example).

My division (Beginner Novice) had 59 entries broken down into 5 groups. Eventing is scored on penalty points (lowest score wins). My dressage score was 30, which was far far better than I expected. At the end of the dressage phase, I was in sixth place in my group of eleven.

Stadium was next. I was a little less nervous for stadium, but not by much. Unlike dressage, where you know weeks in advance what the course will look like (always 20x40m) and what the test is (the list of movements), you don't know exactly what the stadium course will look like until the day before the contest. Susan and I walked through it several times and we made a plan on how to ride it. The fences are numbered and the order you jump them is fixed, but the details of exactly how you get from fence to fence are up to you and very important. The Tomato is very good at jumping, but he has to have the fence "presented" to him properly. This term means riding him squarely to the jump instead of at an angle and he has to be going at the right pace: too fast and he'll jump through it and knock it down (4 penalty points), too slow and he won't have enough momentum to clear it cleanly and he'll knock it down or he'll stop and "refuse" (4 penalty points). My job is to make sure of the presentation. There is also a time limit which, if exceeded, also adds penalty points (1 per second). The goal is ride "double clear", that is, with 0 jumping penalties and 0 time penalties. Here I go. With a little luck and a lot of effort from the Tomato, I got through cleanly. My score remained 30 (30 dressage + 0 stadium) and that moved me up to 4th place in my group.

The next day was the last discipline: cross country. This is everybody's favorite because, well, it's fun as hell. The scoring is similar to stadium in concept: penalties for refusing a jump (the obstacles in cross country are generally fixed, and cannot be knocked over) and time penalties. The refusal cost goes up to 20 points, though, so the stakes are much higher. This cross country course was relatively short as they go: about 1200 meters or so. The first half winds through the woods on gently rolling terrain. There are some logs to jump, an upbank, a downbank, and a small pond (really a large puddle) to cross. The second half of the course is in an open field with some more logs and small wooden structures and another water. Due to geographic constraints, I have video of only the second half of the course (it's too hard to coerce my volunteer film crew to outrace a horse from one half to the other). The two halves are separated by a dry creek crossing, which amounts to puttering across a gully about 8 feet deep. The video starts just after the crossing.

Just like stadium, my job in cross country is to maintain an appropriate pace (too slow and you accrue penalty points and risk refusals, too fast and it can be very dangerous as the terrain is variable and the obstacles don't give. Cross country is the most exciting and the most dangerous of the eventing disciplines) and offer proper presentation. In order to achieve these goals, just like stadium, Susan and I walked through the course several times developing a plan: ride faster here, ride slower there, turn around this tree, etc. I should mention that, in addition to taking advantage of Susan's expertise and extensive experience, we also have a fantastic trainer, Jackie McCrae. She also, of course, walked through stadium and cross country with us and warmed me up for each discipline. Coaching during the efforts is not allowed in eventing: you're on your own.

Cross country was as much fun as I thought it would be and I got through with 0 penalty points. That means I finished "on my dressage score", which was my goal. I also finished second in my group of eleven and third out of 59. Much better than I hoped for!

Now the Tomato needs some time off as he has developed some soreness in his rear legs. But, with a little luck and care, we'll be back next spring for another season.
- posted by Colin @ 6:22 AM