How Not to Horse Show: Learn From My Ridiculous Mistakes

Knight and I are (Lord willing) going to our first horse show next weekend!!!

It’s a schooling show, but my nerves are on edge like it’s Devon or Rolex. The last time I went to a schooling show (when George W. was President–to give you a reference point), my previous horse and I encountered a series of fiascoes, yet in the end things turned out okay. Here’s what I learned about how not to horse show from that day.

Counting down the days ’til this OTTB makes his horse show debut!

1. Forget your saddle pad. I had carefully made sure to take only my essential brushes, a hoof pick and fly spray in my yellow plastic brush box. I put the saddle, girth, bridle, and brush box in my car. I was good to go with everything else. Or so I thought.

I had everything EXCEPT my saddle pad. Thankfully some kind soul I didn’t know lent me one.

2. Provoke your horse to whinny and whinny and whinny. DC could not be tied so I had to rent a box stall which was a few hundred feet away from the arena. I was the only competitor who had a halter-breaking puller of a horse and therefore he was the ONLY horse in the barn. Everyone else had their horses tied to trailers. He kept belting out a series of unending shrill whinnies. It was embarrassing. And loud. And obvious. Did I mention loud?

3. Break the unwritten rule about not using the round pen (and find out the hard way). Since DC was whinnying and high as a kite, I did what I had done at other showgrounds in my previous life (when Bill Clinton was President), and decided to lunge him in the round pen. For just a few minutes. I thought he would expend a bit of energy, and thus regain composure. He began to huff and puff and shake his head.

To my horror, the horse show announcer announced, “The round pen is not open during the show. You need to remove your horse from the round pen immediately!!!” Why couldn’t they have locked it or put up a sign?

4. Ask your friend–a beginner horse person–to hold your horse. Somewhere in the midst of the forgotten saddle pad, unending whinnying, rule-breaking chaos, Gabriel showed up. Not the angel, but a friend with the name who had always wanted to learn how to ride horses and had recently begun taking lessons from a family member who had a riding school. I needed to head over to the show secretary’s table to register and get my number, so I left DC in his charge.

I assumed in his limited riding experience, he knew how to hold a horse. It couldn’t be that hard, but I hadn’t accounted for just how tricky it can be to hold the lead of an unsettled horse at a show grounds.

5. Let your horse get loose. When I started filling in the papers, DC started his fretful whinnying again. One of the ladies at the registration table made a snide remark about “that bay horse.” As I filled in the registration form I said, “I’m trying to enter ‘that bay horse’ of mine into the hunter class.”

Just then someone shouted, “Loose horse!” DC had spooked and pulled away from Gabriel and was now trotting proudly much like the Black Stallion in the scene where Alec attempts to tame him. Thankfully a nearby Good Samaritan successfully grabbed the dangling lead rope.

6. Arrange for your only friend/fan/supporter to leave right before you enter the arena. I thanked the helpful stranger and then my friend had some other event to attend and had to leave just as I was about to start riding.

By that point I was a bundle of nerves: my horse had been broadcasting his unease by whinnying across the whole show grounds, I had been publicly reprimanded over the loudspeaker for lunging him in the round pen, and now he had been the “loose horse!” What was going to happen when I mounted and actually rode him in the show ring? I mounted and my seat came to rest on a wad of nerves, not my equine companion of ten years.

7. Go it alone. I didn’t really have a trainer at the time. Some kind soul trailered us over and dropped us off. So when my one friend left, it was just me and my horse. And the whinnies.

I’m embarrassed just thinking about all these events again. But it turned out okay in the end.

Do you want to know what happened next?

My horse, who had been a bundle of raw energy up until that point, decided to use his powers for good once inside the show ring.

“You are now being judged at a walk.” I took a deep breath and tried to shove my heels down further and stretch my spine up taller.

By the time we got to, “Riders, please canter your horses. Canter.” I barely grazed DC’s right side with the heel of my boot, giving a little squeeze to the left rein.

My show horse pushed off his hind end and burst forward into a left lead canter. He flickered his ears back for a second, listening to me, and then focused his ears forward again to show off for the judge. I sat tall and proud.

When we lined up at the end, DC stood like a gentleman as we awaited the results.

There were eight riders in the class so I figured we’d at least get a ribbon. The announcer revealed the placings beginning with 6th place. Our number was not called. He went through all the other placings then called, “In first place, number 282, Susan Friedland riding Adonis.”

This was the day of the series-of-fiascoes schooling show.

The next class was almost the same as the first. Although I was more relaxed. And when it was over we had won another blue. By the end of the day I had won the championship for my division. Even though it was “just” a schooling show, I was as delighted as if I had won an Olympic gold medal.

Epilogue: The best part of this horse show was that two weeks later, a friend from my barn said, “Susan, I got an email from the organizer of the schooling show. They put out a monthly newsletter and she was wondering if she could get a picture of you and DC to include in the next issue.” Vindicated! “That bay horse!” and the rule-breaker did all right.

YOUR TURN: What tips do you have for “how not to horse show?” Have you learned any lessons about competing the hard way?

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