Devil. Details. BURN THE WITCHES.

Once upon a time, I complained that my horse wouldn't turn right. It was maddening and frustrating and no fun at all.

Austen commented that I'd get through it eventually and the sun would shine and the heavens would open and that the next day we wouldn't be able to turn left.

Such a hater, that one.

Courage is a lot more broke and rideable than he was was last year and so I talked Alyssa into coming out and photographing us the other day.

love this shot of him

We walk/trotted around and tried to get the perfect trot picture.

FOR NOW

And then I rolled up into canter.

And uh.

Guess who can't turn left?

Death Knell for Modern Eventing

Every time I open my mouth about eventing, I get bombarded with angry emotional tirades by people I don't even know (who frequently don't actually event, but are strangely emotionally attached to it) and every time, I swear I'll never do it again. But proving yet again that I might not be the smartest person on the internet, here I go.

the pinnacle of my "eventing"

I assume you all heard about the tragic passing of both an event rider and a horse in unrelated incidents at a US-based 3* last weekend. I'm not here to sit in judgement on specific incidents--by all accounts, the world is now short one amazing woman and a completely irreplaceable animal. There are a lot of articles circulating the internet about them right now--I think the best is this one, by a young woman who was deeply impacted by Phillipa.

No one with any sense is saying that either the rider or the horse was at fault and a lot of people with a lot of sense are fighting about how to fix the obvious and glaring problems. I don't have the answers and I'm definitely not here to chair a wholly-unqualified mob commission from my seat on the internet. Suffice to say, if you think you have the answers to fix a problem we can't quantify at this point, I also think you are an idiot.

That aside.

Eventing is digging it's own grave at an incredible rate right now. I've never evented above beginner novice and at this point in my life, it's unlikely to ever progress beyond that point. I cannot speak to what happens on course and that's not what this is about. I'm talking about the business model the USEA and PRO and modern American eventers have worked so hard to create. From a business perspective, this model is completely unsustainable.

Let's face it--eventing is the grass roots, common-man, Olympic-dreams sport in the way a pay-to-play discipline like show jumping or dressage can never be. International show jumping is populated with celebrities and billionaires. Want to go to the Olympics? Just drop 15mil on the literal nicest horse in the world, hire the best coach in the world, build the best facility in the world, and the competition will come to you. It's somewhat the same in dressage--all y'all rocking those $90 kastel sunshirts--do you know who Charlotte Jorst is? Facsinating story there.

good thing they're nice shirts

Eventing is the only FEI discipline in which a starry-eyed girl can buy a horse off the track for a few hundred dollars and make it to the elite upper levels. That is a beautiful thing, in a lot of ways.

But you know what it's not? A business model. That's why at the USEA convention, there are whole seminars on convincing rich people to be "owners" of upper level horses and allowing the real athletes to ride them. Of course, here's the thing--while a few people certainly own horses because they love horses and they love the sport and their version of collecting Breyer models is owning 7 horses at Rolex, that pool of people is very, VERY small.

For everyone else, they need to get something out of it. Obviously, eventing is a lot more dangerous than show jumping or dressage and requires a pretty specific personality type and a skill set that cannot be bought. That rules out most rich people who can afford to self-finance an international competition schedule. They themselves cannot compete at the top levels.

Ok, well what about event horses as an investment? I mean, Doug Payne sold Running Order and another horse (sob not over it) to not-figuratively buy the farm. I don't know or care how much money changed hands, but you'll notice even WFP hasn't taken that horse to a 4* since then. Of course he did almost metaphorically buy the farm last year, so who knows how that figures in.

What I'm getting at is this: according to this study commissioned by the FEI, one of the biggest indicators for a rotational fall (which is how people and horses die) is the age of the horse--meaning the Marilyn Little school of "ram em and jam em up the levels for a quick resale" is literally punching your ticket for a scary ass fall and if William Fox Pitt can't take a made 4* horse to a 4* event, well, then there really isn't a resale market for a 4* horse. Period. Eventing takes trust and a relationship between horse and rider and you can't buy that. Michael Jung makes his own--wonder why?

So essentially, an upper level event horse is rapidly becoming a dud as an investment. No matter how many times Visa tells you something is priceless, what that means in real terms is that it has no value. Can't sell it.

And if you can't sell it, you can't insure it. Insurance is a business and it runs on actuaries putting real values on things and then betting that the thing won't just fucking die at an event. Which they are doing. Right now.

Well that leaves an interesting conundrum, doesn't it? What's the incentive to own an un-saleable, un-insurable so-called "investment" in a high-risk sport?

There isn't one.

That leaves two options:

1) The moneybags would-be owners walk away from the sport--it drops out of the Olympics and off the public radar. Professionals struggle harder than ever to make it, course design naturally degenerates to the scary-ass stuff they jumped in olden times because there's no money to pay designers and build fancy fences and so on.

2) The sport makes serious changes in terms of safety and accessibility so that the Olympic buy-a-medal program remains a viable option. The risk is greatly reduced, the prices of horses jump up another few notches, the ability of the girl-on-her-ottb to make it to the top becomes less than zero. The purpose-bred $$$$$$$ horse dominates, the sport professionalizes to the point of being unrecognizable, and the Wellington eventing showcase is your new feature 4*. The sport you think you love no longer exists.

There are some appealing things about option 1--it's something Denny Emerson and Jimmy Wofford seem to advocate for, and obviously they've been around a while. There are some horse friendly outcomes in this and there is certainly an emotional appeal--you return the decision making to the horse people instead of handing it to the entertainers and accountants. There are also some really glaring drawbacks.

The first thing that comes to mind is simply the visibility--it's amazing how sports have to clean up when everyone starts looking. I think visibility is a huge part of horse and rider safety. If eventing were to drop off the map of the international scene, a lot of things could happen that otherwise wouldn't if there was more oversight. In addition, I really really don't understand all the people claiming that somehow going back to early-era eventing is a good idea. You think Vicarage Vee was terrifying? LOOK WHAT THEY USED TO DO. That's a nope. There is no question in my mind that with all it's drawbacks, the modern form of eventing is safer for horses and riders than whatever that horrifying bloodbath was.

So let's think about option 2. Money talks. Let's face it--dressage and showjumping, our equivalent international-level FEI-regulated events are essentially tests of which horse is the fanciest and most expensive, which means 99.999% of humanity cannot afford to compete. Obviously, horsemanship still plays in, but no one gets anywhere (on the international scene) with their OTTB. On the other hand, it's glamorous, fun to watch, and safe.

Moreover, there are also some horse friendly features to this model. Namely--horses stop dying in preventable ways. Public scrutiny is at a maximum and there is nowhere to hide a (metaphorical or real) body. The very real drawback is of course that when you can literally buy an Olympic medal, then you expect to and the welfare of the horse can be overlooked. Does this balance the increased scrutiny? Maybe?

Eventing is theoretically different because instead of being a fancy horse competition, it offered us the ability to test the sheer grit and heart of the horses and riders involved. The problem with that kind of test is failing it can mean death for horse and rider. We live in a safe, protected modern society that isn't comfortable with death and thinks that sacrificing good people and good horses on the altar of sport is disgusting bloodlust.

And frankly, I agree.

Modern eventing is going away. It cannot and should not survive.

What rises from it's ashes will be an interesting beast indeed.

From the Beginning Again

I'm at a rather unique place for me right now--Courage actually feels prepared for what we want to do at shows this year, which is show first level dressage. I mean, yeah, we'd never actually done a lengthen canter (ever) until we went to the show, but we got a 7 on one of them, so hey.

It isn't the movements that are giving us trouble. It's the whole adding-stress-at-a-show problem. I can fix that (hopefully) by going to more shows and actively schooling it, but there are other things too.

As I mentioned Monday, Courage came home and was all bent out of shape about life.

So I let him be. One of my favorite trainers once commented that when a horse (or human) has had a lot of stress build up, sometimes they just need to run. Much like when you're scared because you see a predator, so you run like hell to get away and then feel fine. Makes sense, right?

And as I said, the obstacles now aren't training. I need to find a way to communicate to Courage and move forward, not mindlessly drill movements that we both know he already knows.

this is my horse on a bad day. suck it.

So we've changed it up. I know dressage is a very demanding sport and I know that if I push Courage, he'll just burn out. Instead we're spending time together and enjoying each other.

We did spa night and a handwalk down the ditchbank. Courage kept his feet on the ground and his brain in his head and we just relaxed (ish) together.

We had a toodling day. We hung out with the farrier, who called him "a very cool horse" and got a gold star in my book. I got all excited about jumping and dragged my short-flapped brown saddle back out to the barn.

look ma no boots!

We didn't actually jump anything, but we did have a nice walk/trot/canter hack in the outdoor while a cool storm rolled in. I didn't push Courage or really ask for much of anything. It was a glorified toodle and we both had a good time.

Even when I went back to dressage tack, I didn't go school a bunch of movements. Instead, we walked.

yes in white polos. have you met me?

We used the magic contact bit and did simple things. Working walk to free walk to working walk. I played with putting different mini-exercises together to really help him step under and reach forward and after we tried each one, he got to free walk more.

And you know what?

It was great. He stayed relaxed. I stayed engaged. By the end of the ride, Courage was giving me an incredible walk and neither of us was upset.

not impressed by shocking lack of sparkles

So I petted his nose and gave him carrots and put him away.

I tend to be a very intense person when it comes to chasing my goals. Courage is a great horse for me because he's constantly challenging me to find new ways to think about problems. He forces me to drop all my baggage at the gate, take a deep breath, and spend the next 90 minutes focused only on one thing.

Him.

Things outside of horses are a little crazy right now. I'm learning to let Courage be my zen, and for 90 minutes a day, all is well with the world.

TMT: The Best Deal Ever

Despite my recent stint of "moderation" and "binge selling" (which we all know was prompted by one thing only), I'm the consummate tack ho, always on the lookout for a deal. I've probably mentioned before how I picked up a $220 Sprenger KK Ultra for $40 on consignment, and I thought that was the deal of the decade.

yup

And then I don't know if I mentioned when I was bit shopping for my trainer and she wanted this weird giant old eggbutt snaffle made out of some bizarre metal that isn't even manufactured anymore. I found one for her for $10 and when I ran across another one for $10, I snapped it up for me. I dunno what those things originally cost, but I call it the magic contact bit and HOT DAMN am I glad I have one. So that is also a great deal.

also yup

But then Lindsey and Alyssa went to a tack sale/party that I couldn't attend and found not only the deal of the decade, but I venture the deal of the freaking century.

That $220 sprenger I was patting myself on the back for only spending $40 on?

$5.

OH YEAH.

and these ones are all mine

Apparently there were multiples. Now we all have one.

So tell me bloggy-folk, what is your best-ever horse supplies deal?

Express Yourself, Courage

As you may have picked up on by now, Courage is not a horse who keeps his feelings to himself.

Ever. 

He got some down time after the show, because I knew he had to be at least as stiff and sore I was. Then I went out to play at the barn, and saw this:

yes the whites of his eyes

Because I am not a complete lunatic, I decided we would skip the whole "relaxing stretchy ride" thing and go straight to just letting him run in the arena (on a cold, windy morning after a 20 degree temp drop overnight).

i swear this isn't just bad photoshop

And an attempt at being majestic:

such majesty

And the one that is possibly my new all-time-favorite Courage picture:

this will be a meme

 And then after he got that out of his system, he trotted around like this:

hind end much?

I think we are getting all the parts figured out. We're just doing it at Courage-speed.

Answering the Nagging Questions

I've gotten a lot of questions about our latest round of show-fail, so here's my stab at addressing them in a more or less coherent way. I'm doing this in the most dickish way possible by interviewing myself. Questions are compiled from various sources and not exact questions from any one person.

Q) How do you feel about Courage now?
A) About the same. I've put a lot into him. I believe in him. I was disappointed and sad for a day, but failures are going to happen and I still have to move on. He's still cute, I'm still here, and we're going to figure this out.

Q) Does he have X vet problem?
A) Last I checked, vets had to actually physically check horses for problems (vs think about them on the internet) and to be a vet, they had to attend some sort of "schooling". I dunno. Never wanted to be a vet, so never looked into it. Regardless, I think medical advice needs to come from medical professionals. Either you assume that I am a good horse owner and deal with my horse responsibly or you assume that I am a shitty horse owner and don't. Either way, I generally don't take medical advice from strangers on the internet. I'd say you shouldn't either, but then I'd just be making a funny meta joke.

TRUST DR CHIWEENIE HE IS SO QUALIFIED

Q) How is this any different than the Hellmare?
A) If you've been around here long enough (YEARS), you might remember the Hellmare. She was actually remarkably physically similar to Courage if you disregard their plumbing. Well, that and the fact that she was pure evil. Courage has OPINIONZ. Izzy would actively try to kill me. I realize that might look the same to an outsider (or if I'm not writing well), but it works out to the difference between Courage letting me slide back in the tack after an incident and Izzy jamming me face-first into a rocky field because I was SLIGHTLY off balance. Intent is how they're different. Intent matters.

Q) Are you going to sell him?
A) No.  Even if I wanted to, which I don't, it would look something like this: for sale: older busted-up ex-racehorse with no professional training and no useful skills. Prone to bolting, leaping, and expressing himself. Not talented enough for pro, way too much for most ammies, doesn't take kindly to kids, not a jumper, hates trails. NO ONE BUYS THAT.

Q) Aren't you a terrible person because your training philosophy is slightly different then mine?
A) Of all the reasons I might be a terrible person, I wouldn't put this one that high on the list. YMMV.

I'm not going to sit here and lie to you and say that it's all butterflies and roses. It's not. I was really upset. Because I have a long, LONG junior career of being really terrible at shows, I can't say it's an unfamiliar feeling, which probably helped me rebound faster.

junior me would be so jealous

she couldn't even

I'll also admit that I was pretty damn jealous of the kid bopping around on the haffie pony while Courage flipped his shit, but then that ended right when the pony dirty bucked it's kid off and galloped loose through the warm up.

So here's the thing: horses are horses and from time to time, they're going to horse in ways we don't like. That's true whether you ride Valegro, Courage, my beloved Paddykins, a European Sex God, or a mule. The important thing is be sure that when you have those moments, you can deal with them.

mostly i deal by taking pictures

People with more means than myself can pay trainers to fix the bad parts, but I need to be able to ride through them. With Courage, I can (so far) handle it myself. He's athletic and can be a bit nutty, but he's never out to hurt me intentionally. I know what his range of reactions are, and I'm reasonably comfortable with them.

So yeah. I could try to get something else, but no horse is perfect and frankly, I like the the one I have.

most of the time anyways

Quick Reviews: Show Equipment

There are lots of bloggers who write lots of helpful product reviews. Those things are super helpful if I'm shopping and super boring if I'm not. In the interst of being as non-boring as possible, here are some quick product reviews of some new stuff I used at the show.

1) FITS Zephyr Dressage Coat review

I found this on clearance for $100 and snagged it because I really, really wanted a four silver button coat with piping and something washable, stretchy, and breathable. This coat checks all the boxes. Wearing dark colors in the sun is wearing dark colors in the sun, but it was bearable, reasonably flattering, and actually fit my ridiculous ape arms. I have never liked a show coat before and I'm not sure I plan to start now, but for $100, I am very pleased.

2) Ogilvy Dressage Profile Pad review

I'm pretty sure both of my ogilvy pads are this model. Regardless, love love love this pad. Fits perfectly on C under my 18" dressage saddle and large Mattes half pad. Never moves, never wrinkles, never rubs. Thick enough to hold it's shape, thin enough to wash well. I wish all my saddle pads were ogilvy.

still going strong in our last test

3) Charles Owen Sparkle JR8 review

I've had this helmet for a while now but haven't worn it much once it broke in because I wanted to save it for shows/clinics/photo shoots.

Love it. I mean, it's just a spruced up JR8, so it's not all fancy and upgraded like other things on the market. I had a jr8 I loved for a couple years and I'm fine with the features and price point. It definitely stands out. I got a ton of compliments and if there were haters, they kept it to themselves. I will say the sparkle game is strong in the dressage crowd, so I wasn't the only one with a shiny helmet.

4) Horze Crescendo Kiana Breeches review

I hate hate hate wearing white breeches, so I didn't own any. I ended up with these through a trade on facebook. The detailing is cute and the fabric isn't see through.

I tried them one once a few months back and then wore them both days for the show. They held up great, didn't give me saggy ass, and smoothed things out reasonably well. I would buy these again no question.

There are some glaring holes in my wardrobe going forward--I need acceptable show gloves (realized morning of that everything I own is blue or brown) and I really need a good stock pin. Preferably with sparkles. I also want custom dress boots but LULZ $$$. Oh and a garment bag (and boot bag!) is starting to sound incredibly useful. Ideas?

Taste the Rainbow

I know I was a little spoiled princess/sour grapes yesterday, but I'm human and I needed to allow myself to feel how disappointed I was. Now that we've over it, let's pick ten things that went well in our first level debut.

1) Trailering. 

I'm actually thrilled about this. He had one minorly bad-ish experience last year and then spent 12 months being HORRID about all trailers. Not getting on, running off backwards, and getting progressively worse any time we tried to work on it.

I may be down on myself for not hauling him a bunch of places this winter like I knew I should have, but at least giving him a trailer break seems to have reset that part of his brain. He walked on with zero hesitation both days both ways and unloaded like a gentleman. Gold. Star.

2) Non-serious-bolting. 

This one is a little harder to explain to people who don't ride C. Last year, Courage would get tense and then he would LEAVE. No ifs/ands/buts. Just gone. It was zero fun to ride through. His method is to invert, suck his neck back so his ears are basically up my nostrils, and then go leaping away. There is no stopping it.

This year, he's been letting us talk him out of it, which is cool, and further, when he did bolt in our first test, he never quiiiiiite left. It was dramatic and tense and icky, yes, but he didn't just abandon ship and go. Last year, it would have been a lot worse.

I could probably do a full post on this and why it's cool to me, but the essence is that he's starting to trust that if he tells me he can't, I believe him, and then he doesn't need to resort to that serious of self-preservation.

3) Halts.

I can't take credit for this--Courage is a naturally very square horse. I rode my halts pretty ok and in every single picture, Courage is dead square.

like so

So that's pretty great.

4) Braining. 

I don't know if y'all remember last summer, but I sure do. It started out TERRIBLE and then I took C to every local show that cost less than $100 and made it my stated goal to ride the horse I had under me instead of tense up and make poor choices.

I'll take it

It worked. I was cognizant through all four of our tests. I made choices about what to do and how to ride. I kept breathing and thinking and moving and asking Courage for what I knew he could give me. Obviously, what he could give me that day was not really what I wanted, but that will come.

You'll notice we had no bolting on day two even though I had a by far tougher ride on a totally peaced-out horse. That is actually a good thing.

5) Outfit.

I think show clothes are super stupid and I think white breeches are even stupider. I do like my show shirts, so there's that. Regardless, I am generally pleased with how the whole look came together. While seeing myself in whites first thing in the morning nearly caused me to dive back into bed and give up the whole thing, the riding pictures actually don't make me claw my eyes out and want to scream.

do love my belt

I'll even admit that between riding a numbered level (haha sort of) and wearing a coat+white pants and braiding, I feel like we look like legit "dressuers". It doesn't really mean anything or change anything to anyone other than me, but it's a nice little feeling.

6) Colors.

Last year we only won first and second place ribbons. 60% of those were due to there only being 2 horses in each of our classes, but 40% were actually legit. While that is a cool set of ribbons to keep around, we're really mixing it up.

no duplicaes yet

Taste the rainbow is our show motto for this year I guess.

7) 10 meter half circles

When Courage and I first moved to our current barn (with it's 20x40m indoor), my goal was to trot a serpentine in the indoor without completely losing him. It. Took. MONTHS. Not pretty. That was a long time ago now, but building the balance and muscle and training that allows Courage to put in nice half circles has been a very long process.

picture not representative of actual test

They didn't even feel challenging in our tests. They were just a great bending exercise that helped set us up for the next thing.

8) 15m Canter Circles

Can I get an amen? 20m circles at B and E never go well for me. It's just so much space and I get all distracted and it's always unequivocally bad (though a stretch circle there seems fine, so whatevs). I really loved the 15 meter canter circles because they provided a gymnastic exercise for my horse within the test rather than just just quizzing me on geometry (hint: not my best subject).

The smaller figure made me keep Courage coming around from my leg and just rode really well. The first level tests may be a lot more complex to learn than training, but I think they're actually a little more horse friendly in that the brain has to stay somewhat engaged.

9) Suitability.

While I was really, really, really disappointed on Sunday and did not have a good time at all, I actually feel kind of ok looking back at it. I don't feel like dropping back to training level will fix our problems and actually I think continuing on at first level will help.

Also even though our scores were not good, they could definitely have been way, way worse. All four rides felt completely terrible and yet we didn't get kicked out and our scores stayed over 55, so eh. Let's get more miles at this level and see what happens.

10) Encouragement. 

I'm working on developing adult ammy dressage friends, because this shit is nuts and I need some crazies to console with. One lady who I have a major talent-crush on stopped and talked to me while warming up her (to die for) 4th level+ horse. When I started seriously drooling on her horse, she laughed and told me that two years ago she couldn't even get him in the ring at regionals.

DROOL

And then I was bummed about my scores and another adult ammy with a lovely horse laughed and told me about how she got scores in the 40s when she first started out.

And so on. I know DQs get a bad rap, but they were super nice to me.

11) Packing omg.

Almost forgot this one so I'm tacking it on at the end.

way. less. stuff.

Can we just have a moment to appreciate how much easier it is to pack for a dressage show than an event?

One saddle. One bridle. One pad. One half pad. One horse.

Instead of two saddles, 3-4 pads, 2 half pads, 2 (at least) bridles, spare bits, boots for two phases, a breastcollar, a martingale and so on. DON'T MISS THAT.

uhhh yeah 

So yeah. You'll notice I didn't even include "now saving $400 by not going to a rated show" as a positive. I actually didn't even think of it in the context of this list til right now. We are officially not entering a rated show this month, which is sad because it was a big goal for so long, but eh well.

Back on the "every cheap show we can get to" plan to log all the miles I can afford. We're not giving up.