On Saturday, December 12, I competed in my first horse show since 2008. This show also happened to be my first show on Monkey, my first dressage show, and only my second show ever. Needless to say, I was feeling the show nerves about two months out.
My lease pony, Chunky Monkey, is not one to dominate in the dressage ring. He much prefers his primary job, which is teaching little kids how to walk and trot. As a 5’0″ tall adult, I can get away with riding the 13.3 hand pony, so I’ve been trying to coax him into performing basic dressage work. That pony is difficult to ride forward and on the bit, and bending is nearly impossible. As the months went on and I didn’t see a magical transformation in the weeks before our show, I was starting to think we’d be a total disaster and embarrassment.
The day before the show, we hauled in to get him settled at the show grounds. Everything in me was telling me to skip riding in the arenas in the dark, but I got on and gave it my best shot. To my surprise, Monkey was great. He was slightly more forward, which was a welcome gift. An even better gift was that he was not spooky at all. I was sure he was going to do one of his trademark spin moves and leave me in the middle of a crowded arena. As the warm up progressed, he just got better and better. My smile was ear to ear by the time I swung off and put him back in the barn. I was singing his praises all the way home, and I’m certain my husband was tired of agreeing “Yes, he is a good pony.”
We got to the show grounds early on Saturday and I had the opportunity to watch several riders warm up and perform their tests. The warm up ring wasn’t as crazy as I imagined it to be, and the riders were not perfect, which was a huge relief. Some pairs had beautiful tests, but it was nice to see that I am not the only one who has struggles to contend with.
When the time came to tack up and hop on, I was fighting back waves of nausea. I powered through, and as soon as my foot was in the stirrup, I was in The Zone. Cathy coached us through a decent warm up as the rain started to come down, and before I knew it, I was heading into the covered arena. Training Test 1 went by in a flash. There were no major mishaps, despite our 20 meter circles turning out more like 15 meter circles and our halts were not exactly halts.
Between tests, we trotted around the warm up ring and did transitions to wake him up and get him thinking. When we entered the arena again, rain fell off the side of the roof right in front of us and blew towards us. Monkey spooked, but only a tiny spook, and then we moved on to have what I felt was a better test. I rode to the absolute best of my ability, and we scored a 65.2 on Training 1 to end in 3rd place and a 62.1 on Training 2 to end in 2nd place . Not bad for our first show together! I am still on Cloud 9 and I can’t wait to get back out there the next chance I get. This show was extremely validating for me. I spend so much of my time telling myself what a horrible rider I am, but my show record speaks differently. Sure, we’re not perfect and we never will be, but we had competitive scores at our first show together! As a rider, I will never stop learning and striving to do better. I’m confident that next time we trot down the center line and halt at X, we will have improved even more.
Keep Calm and Carreon 