Sure. How About This?
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life and the procedure. The process is its own reward.
-Amelia Earhart
Saturday, September 30, 2017
Phase 1: Dressage
I was wide-awake at
4:50am. I laid there for a bit reviewing the dressage test in my head as well
as the stadium course; remarkably, I had them both completely memorized. Unlike
the night before, I was very calm. Richard rolled over and asked if I was
ok. I nodded. “You’ve got this,” he said. By 5:30, I couldn’t stand it any
more. Carefully, maneuvering over a snoring Sampson, I got up and got
dressed.
The campground was
quiet and damp. Embers from the previous night's campfires were the only
lights. I wiped the dew off the scooter and headed to the barns. I was barely
out of the campground when I was struck with a realization - I had made it. I
stopped the scooter and soaked it in. The rolling green of the cross country
course lay before me. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Amelia Earhart's quote about tenacity kept running through my mind. “The most
difficult thing is the decision to act.” Check. I had made the decision
to act. I had passed my 40-day crash course in eventing and actually made it
here. As I sat there in the dark, watching my breath coil and looking at
the lights of the glowing barns ahead of me, I knew that the rest was merely
tenacity. Eight years ago or more, a good friend's daughter asked her what the
word tenacity meant. She tried to define it and finally said, “Tenacity.
Julie is tenacious.” Her daughter then understood. “You can act to
change and control your life and the procedure.” I did. I had done it for
the past 40 days and this weekend, I was going to do it again. It might not be
pretty, but I was going to do it. Pep talk over, I proceeded to the barn.
Things moved quickly
from there. Everything moves quickly when your ride time is 8:55! Feeding Romeo
grain and giving him more hay, cleaning his stall and filling waters, polishing
tack, borrowing a dressage coat (Thanks Erin L!), finding my gloves, losing my
gloves, and finding my gloves, checking Romes' braids, a quick tail trimming by Erika, a morning walk to
stretch his legs, all ahead full! Richard arrived with breakfast
and Em to help me with the details. As the time to mount up neared, there were
a lot of "where's my" questions that suddenly came out of my mouth.
"Katherine have you seen that thing I was holding a minute ago? Hey Em
where's my hair net? Does anyone know where my halter is?" You go
from having all morning to get ready to suddenly not knowing where your head is.
But we managed to get me dressed, get Romeo tacked up and his competition
number on his bridle, and me on my mount. Romeo and I walked with Jen on her
non-compete horse, Liam, to the dressage arena. Romeo seemed calm. Although it
had been awhile since he evented, he knew what we were doing. At least one of
us did!
As we approached the
warm-up, we stopped at the tack check tent where volunteers make sure that all
of your tack is within regulation. “Look at me! I get to go do a bit check!
(SQUEAL!)” Jen laughed with delight! We met Erika and
Cheerleader-in-Chief Val in warm-up. Despite one small melt-down by Romeo (too
many horses in my space! Bucky, bucky, rear, rear!), it was great. I was
relaxed - at least I thought I was. Romeo was a bit excited but controllable.
My crash course had not really covered the details of actual competition rules
like how to salute the judge, when to enter rings, etc. I went to take off my
helmet in order to fix my glasses and Erika panicked. Tripping over her words,
“YOU CANT TAKE YOUR HELMET OFF! YOU WILL BE ELIMINATED!” OH, HOLY HELL!!! “Oops!
Sorry. I didn’t know!” Wouldn’t that have been a horrible way to end the
dream?
Before my test, I
had a quick conversation with Erika about hearing the whistle. When you
hear the whistle (or horn or bell or squeaky toy), you have 60 seconds to enter
the dressage arena. Let me remind all of you young sassy kids out there that
when you get older, not only do you need all kinds of different eye glasses to
help you see, but your hearing gets a little fuzzy too. Many times at Emily’s
shows, I have either not heard the whistle blow or gotten hers confused with an
arena near by. I certainly didn’t want to get a penalty or be eliminated over a
whistle misunderstanding. Erika said it was perfectly acceptable for me to stop
at the judge's box on my first time around the arena and tell them the
situation and ask if they could give me a hand wave or something to that
nature.
The rider ahead of
me was done. We picked up the trot and made our way around the arena to the
judge's box. Romeo was still a bit excited, but I knew I had plenty of time to
circle the arena once or twice and calm him down. I felt good. We could do
this. I stopped at the judges box.
Me (Smiling from ear
to ear): Good morning!
Judge (coolly):
Hello. Number 422.
Me: I have a bit of
a hearing problem. Would you mind giving me some sort of signal so that I know
that your whistle it is for me?
Judge (still
coolly): Sure. How about this?
And she blew the
whistle right in my face. SHE BLEW THE WHISTLE WITH ME STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT
OF HER!
ME: That’s it? Wait,
you want me to start? NOW?
Judge: Yes.
What the heck? That
wasn’t nice! Crap! We gotta go Romeo! Go! Now I’m sure in actuality, I had enough
time to circle the arena again, but because I wasn’t going to let not entering
it in the allotted time be my downfall, I didn’t take the chance. Romeo sensed
my panic and broke into a canter going down the far side away from the
judges. Well crap. Get it together. Get it together. I entered
the ring. Romeo still had his feelings hurt for not being allowed to trot
around the arena (maybe I did, too). I spent the majority of my
test trying to keep him from breaking into a canter. My dressage test consisted
of remarks like "restricted," "tension," and
"tight." But my only proper mistake was the free walk. The arena
seemed so much smaller than the others. We turned at M and headed diagonally
across the arena. Half way across, I realized we were headed toward K and not E.
Uh-oh! I wonder if she’ll notice if we just leg yield over here to the right a
bit. The smile was uncontrollably back as I tried to edge Romeo
closer to E. She noticed. The test read “error.”
We completed the
test with my newly learned salute. Head, arm, arm, head. I
smiled and thanked the judge even though I felt like she was rather snarky to
me. I left the arena thrilled that I had remembered my test and was actually
moving on to the next phase! On the walk back to the barns, I told my
family about my not-so-nice conversation with the judge. Later, I read the
judges remarks on my test...“Both horse and rider can relax more.” Sure,
sounds like a plan. How about you don't blow your
whistle in my face when I ask you for help hearing the signal! Need to relax
more...you can relax this…
But never mind.
Eventing is a marathon, not a sprint, and I had two more phases to go. I had a
score next to my name which meant I was still competing. On to show jumping.
With dressage behind me, all of my attention focused on those eight jumps in the
arena.
Paper tigers. Sit Up
and Kick. Kick and Sit Up.
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