Sports Equipment and Other Best Friends

I spent this past weekend with my daughter and her horse. This isn't exactly news — I spend most weekends with my daughter and her horse. Unless it's the dead of winter, in which case she spends the weekend with her horse and I watch old movies under "the best blanket in the world," a huge and cozy patchwork fleece made by my talented sister-in-law.

On Saturday, I drove about two and a half hours out to the Berkshires, then another 45 minutes or so down to Connecticut. It was a gorgeous day, but a long ride. On the way, I had to pick up day-glo orange duct tape and a box of Apple Jacks. Apparently, the cereal is our horse's new favorite snack. (He also likes Wheat Thins and Parmesan Goldfish.)

The show was enormous and our stable was well-represented. We stayed with another rider and mom in an eclectic "inn" that looked like a plain old motel on the outside but decorated by Holly Hobbie on the inside. (Would you like some calico with your calico?) There was a pizza and burger place down the road and millions of fireflies.

Sunday morning was sunny and very very hot. The girls left early with their trainer, and the parents followed soon after. The horses had spent the night in a gorgeous stable a few miles from the event grounds. There were hundreds of riders and it promised to be a very long day.

My daughter's dressage test was scheduled earlier than the other girls', and she carefully groomed her pony before just as carefully grooming herself. Dressage is all about precision and appearance is important. To this day, I laugh that the woman who has had short hair all her life (that would be me) has become absolutely expert at constructing and securing perfect buns. Really, I could be on Dance Moms. 

But, I digress.

Dressage went extremely well and we were encouraged. After lunch, my daughter and her trusty steed would compete in stadium jumping and then on a cross-country course made up of logs and ditches, various types of fences and water obstacles. Typically, this is where they do their best (and have the most fun). 

But, as soon as they started warming up, my daughter could tell that something was wrong. Her horse didn't feel like himself. He was sluggish and resisted her commands. He also seemed to be dehydrated although, try as she might, she couldn't get him to drink. Nevertheless, they had a double clear stadium round (no faults, no time penalty) and with her trainer's encouragement, they headed to cross-country.

The trouble started early. The horse refused two jumps (something that never happens), then stopped dead in his tracks when they got to the water. Disappointed of course, but also genuinely worried, my daughter "retired" from the event and from the overall competition. 

As I watched her sponge him down and encourage him to eat and — especially — drink, I thought about how different equine eventing is from other sports. Like many athletes, my daughter relies on her equipment: thousands of dollars worth of saddles and tack, and most importantly, her horse. But, if a champion tennis player isn't satisfied with her racquet, she can get a new one. If a NASCAR driver wrecks her car, she can get a new one. 

In theory, I guess, an equestrienne can get a new one too.

But, my daughter never would. 

Tennis racquets and racecars (and sailboats and lacrosse sticks and ice skates and football helmets) are not living, breathing animals. They don't have feelings. They don't experience pain. For my daughter (and countless other riders), the horse is a combination of athletic equipment and beloved pet.

He's also her dearest friend.

Whenever we attend events, I see riders who push their horses too far. I've seen jumpers whip their ponies to make them go faster and leap higher. We know some who've happily traded up, buying better trained and more accomplished mounts (and assuring more ribbons and trophies in doing so).

If we had the money, I'm sure my daughter would love to have an elite Class 1 horse. But, it would be in addition to her current one, not as a replacement.
 
She was very sad to leave the Connecticut show without a ribbon, but she was far more concerned about her horse. She felt bad that she had pushed him when he wasn't feeling up to his usual self. She was sorry if his loyalty to her had kept him going past his comfort zone.

It looks like he's on the mend now. We had to scratch from an upcoming event (even bigger, even farther away, and probably even hotter), but — with our vet's approval — my daughter should be back in the saddle by the end of the month.

Being a fine horsewoman isn't just about winning. And, this particular stable mom couldn't be prouder.

PHOTO USED WITH PERMISSION
If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to order a copy of my book  Lovin' the Alien at www.lovinthealien.com.

Your Money at Work

We went through three years of dance school and, consequently, three years of dance recitals. Yes, like loving mothers everywhere, I had the ubiquitous photos on the fridge. (I think we still have at least one of them there: our little angel tarted up in feathers and lamé looking like nothing so much as a toddler in a tiara.) 

My very first round as a dance mom, I attended the dress rehearsal. My now teenage daughter was five, and her group was supposed to be fairies. They wore green and pink stretchy velvet dresses, flower wreaths and gauzy wings (the costumes were sluttier in subsequent years; these were actually pretty sweet). The choreography included flitting about and tumbling. Their fifteen minutes of fame was compressed into about three.

Another mother sitting behind me in the auditorium tapped me on the shoulder. "Your money at work," she said, gesturing to the stage.

These days, dance school is but a distant sequined memory. Our daughter is all about the horses and the entire household must follow suit. For three years, she attended equestrian camps ("your money at work"). This year, she went away to a renowned horsemanship clinic in Vermont. It was only ten days but there was much expense entailed: trailering the pony up and back, the program fees, new equipment, room and board with a host family, a weekend at a B&B for my husband and me at the end.

We dropped her off the last Saturday in June. As always when my daughter is away, I missed her terribly. But, the week went by pretty quickly with work and the 4th of July. Before we knew it, we were driving back up. We visited the facility on Saturday for a three-phase event (dressage, stadium jumping, cross-country), did some sightseeing Sunday, and Monday, picked her up and brought her home.

Since cell phone service was sketchy at best (and my daughter had more fun things to do than call us when it did work), we had a lot of catching up to do. Here's a quick rundown of her experience:

• 1 sixth place ribbon

• 2 intensive riding lessons each day
• 6 hours of barn chores each day

• 3 demerits for not cleaning her saddle well enough

• 1 rope swing into the Ottauquechee river
• 7 nighttime bike rides (without a helmet)
• 5 new BFFs
• 4 chicken caesar wraps
• 2 sunburns
• 10 mosquito bites
• 1 spider bite (we think)
• .5 showers per day (don't ask)
• 0 letters home
• 13 horse-crazy roommates
• 56 ounces of Starburst candies

"Your money at work."

The equine experience of a lifetime? I have no idea what we spent, but suffice it to say, it was not inconsequential.

Having my daughter home again, happy and in one piece? Priceless.

Fantastic Falls

When I was a girl, our family used to watch a sports magazine show called, ABC Wide World of Sports. I can't remember any of the highlights except for the opening titles. Each week, a dramatic announcer would say:


"Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport ... the thrill of victory ... the agony of defeat ..."


The clip used to depict the aforementioned "agony" was a spectacular ski crash, the poor skier tumbling many times off the ramp before finally wiping out. Week after week after week, we saw that fantastic fall. (Legend has it that he was Vladimir "Spider" Sabitch, the skier who was infamously shot and killed by actress girlfriend Claudine Longet. But, I digress.) 


Defeat is agony. All athletes, old and young, professional and amateur can relate. And, guess what? So can their moms.


The first time my daughter fell off a horse in a show was a sobering experience. I didn't actually see it, because she was deep in the woods, halfway through a cross-country course. It had been a difficult day. It was hot. There were delays. Several (older and more experienced) riders had already wiped out in front of us. And, there were bees in the woods, which made for nervous riders and ponies alike.


She had come in first place in dressage (a wonderful occurrence) and after about a 90-minute break had set off on her cross-country course. She cleared the first couple of jumps and then we waited because the rest were out of sight. Suddenly, I heard an urgent voice coming from one of the judges' walkie talkies. "Rider down, loose horse, loose horse."


Since my daughter was the only rider on the course at that moment, I was pretty certain I knew who they were talking about. Sure enough, about a nanosecond before my heart attack, my daughter walked out of the woods, rubbing her backside but otherwise no worse for wear. Her proud steed, meanwhile, had run back to the trailer about a mile down the road. He had had enough.


It used to be hard for me to watch my daughter jump fences. One trick I learned early on was that if I videotaped them for her (she liked to go back and analyze her performance), it wasn't as frightening. Of course, that meant that the few times her horse refused or, worse, she fell off, the recording took on that fragmented, scary camerawork of the Blair Witch Project. Not so much anymore though. She's improved and I've chilled. As long as she and her horse are steady, the camera is too.


Results of three-phase eventing, which comprise most of the shows she does these days, are partly based on the skill of the rider and partly based on the errors of the competition. Dressage comes first. It can be stressful to watch my daughter and her friends go through their routines (and there are sometime tears when a judge is particularly critical), but I've never seen anyone get hurt. Scores are posted and riders are ranked. After that, the only way you can move up, from say a yellow ribbon to a red, is if you manage to earn less penalty points than the others in the following events, stadium and cross-country.


The stadium course is mapped out and girls have a chance to walk it with their trainers in advance. Hopefully, each rider is competing at the appropriate (read: safe) level and she and her pony can clear the fences. Nevertheless, we've seen girls fall sideways, backwards and forwards. We've seen rails clipped but somehow stay up. We've seen two-level "oxer" jumps come crashing down under the weight of both equine and equestrienne. More than one of my daughter's friends has had to take time off because of a concussion.


(This is when I wish my daughter played the violin.)


Cross-country is even trickier. There are an awful lot of things that can spook a horse when it's outside the stadium. There are logs and "coops" and rails to jump. There are water obstacles and drops. There are very nervous mothers waiting at the starts and finishes.


Last weekend, my daughter competed in a three-phase in another part of the state. It was a particularly tough show with higher fences (and stricter judges). As we watched the girls do their stadium jumping before her, a couple had "refusals" (penalty points) and one fell off (elimination). All of these snafus helped my daughter's ranking. And yet, I sat there crossing my fingers and holding my breath for each rider. One of my daughter's teammates saw me and thought I didn't get it. "You should say 'Yay' when someone else falls," she said. I explained that, as a mother, "You want everyone to do well. You just want your daughter to do better." 


This week, mothers all over the world have been holding their breath and crossing their fingers. For some truly fantastic falls, take a look at the Olympic cross-country crashes here.


Maybe there's still time for those violin lessons ...