A few weekends ago, I took my horse to her first show: a hunter schooling show at my university. My horse is a 5-year-old Mustang mare, for reference, and I never thought she would be good enough to show. She has more self-preservation than athleticism, which has made her training incredibly slow, and I’ve had many people along the way say that she would never amount to anything. Unfortunately, I believed that for a long time, but I’d finally realized that if I never put the work in, they would be right. So I got us both enrolled in lessons and I decided that this would be the season of schooling shows.
The show on February 3rd was the start of what I hope will be an eventful show season. The goal is to try any local show that would cost me less than $100 in entry fees, just to get my horse out and experiencing as many different events as possible. She hasn’t proven herself to excel in any one discipline yet, so I have an amazing opportunity to create a horse who can be at least mediocre in everything we try. She won’t be a Grand Prix jumper, but I can take her to hunter shows, trails rides, western pleasure shows, three-day events, endurance riders, and just about anything else under the sun. The way I see it, the more we do, the more well-rounded she gets. And since I’m someone who loves to do a little bit of everything, the idea of that works really well for me.
As someone who’s never had the opportunity to compete, events always seemed like a daunting goal far in the distance. They seemed like the end destination. The mindset was: if I work hard enough and train my horse well enough, we can show. But then I signed up for the schooling show, and I knew my horse wouldn’t be perfect. This wasn’t an end-goal show. At the show, my girl was amazing. She had a green moment during her crossrail round because she got very herd bound to all the horses who were waiting inside the arena to shelter from the bad weather. She got “stuck” near the entrance to the ring, and I got frustrated. I should have hopped off to lead her around the course, but there was so much going on and I felt like I was under so much pressure that I didn’t even think about it until I was home. Instead, I got frustrated with her and ended up having to fight for so much as one step forward. After that, I scratched from the second jumping class and switched to two flat classes instead, where she would have buddies in the arena and be set up for success. And she did succeed! Not only did she exceed expectations in between classes by waiting patiently with me both on her back and holding her, but she was incredible in her flat classes. We placed 2nd in the “Pile of poles” division and 5th in the crossrail division. It was way better than I expected.
All that goes to say is that by viewing the show as part of the training process, I gave my horse an incredible opportunity for learning and success that I would never have gotten if I had kept showing as an end-goal. Showing well is still a goal for me. Eventually, I want to bring my horse to a show and ride all our events with no catastrophes. I want a soft and willing horse who isn't anxious about everything. And these schooling shows are a step in the right direction for that goal.
With a more experienced and well-trained horse who can perform well, this likely wouldn’t even be on my mind. I would love a horse who I could hop on to complete a jump course without making any modifications or using multiple shows as a process to warm him up to the idea of even riding him alone in a new arena. But I have my mare, and as grateful as I am for her, she comes with her own unique set of challenges. She makes me a better person, but she certainly isn’t an easy horse to achieve goals with. I get a lot of feel-good stories from her only because we have seemingly endless obstacles to overcome that wouldn’t faze a “regular” horse.
The moral of the story? Shows are a valuable training tool and it’s important to focus on little improvements rather than ribbons. If you go in expecting nothing, your horse has a chance to surpass your expectations.