HotToTrot
Well-Known Member
The seasons are inextricably linked, in my mind, with horses and with eventing. As each season passes to make way for the new one, a stream of poignant memories flood unchecked through my mind. Some are older, some are more recent, but they're all very real and they all make me realise, every day, how lucky I am to have had the horses and the experiences I've had.
Winter. Cold, frosty mornings, the ground hard underfoot. The impatience of fully-clipped horses, the excitement and the adrenalin of chasing through the fields of Norfolk with the Dunston Harriers as a wayward teenager.
Spring. Anticipation, preparation. Eventing dreams that may come true, and eventing hopes that may be shattered. Isleham in the mud, coming home from Tweseldown in the dark, testing myself, finding out where I am really am after the winter off.
Summer. Long, hazy, hot summer. The event season in full swing, now, with plans to be made, entries to be done, ice cream to be eaten after my round. Sweaty, slick wet horses and dust from arena surfaces.
Autumn. Oh, autumn. The leaves fall from the tress now and I frantically hold on to what's left of the season. Don't go, summer. Don't be over for another year. But autumn's a special, happy, nostalgic time for me. South of England, three years ago now. My first ever one-star on Vito. The dream that became reality when we went Intermediate at Oasby. The sheer giddy exhilaration and the possibilities that opened up before me as Vito jumped right through the glass ceiling that existed above Novice in my mind, landed out on a green-flagged course, and just kept on galloping. Last autumn. My first two star. My husband, holding Parrot as he grazed in hand at Aldon, stable quilt on now, the evening already cold.
And this autumn. My last autumn, my last year. Because - we're off. We're leaving the country.
Eventers tend to be a patient bunch. We like to wait for "another day", we assure each other that "there's no rush". We say we have "all the time in the world". Like most things that tend to apply to the majority of normal people, though, I have always had the uneasy feeling that these pearls of wisdom weren't true for me. Every time that I thought it could get no more ridiculous, my life promptly got more ridiculous, until, let's summarise: I had two kids under four, one horse at Advanced, one horse out at BE100, a job with a top US City law firm and various friends and family members to spend time with. There was no doubt about it, I was flying very close to the sun, and if I stayed there for too long, then at some point, my wings would fall off. I didn't know how they'd fall off, but I knew that I had to keep pressing on whilst I still had them; I had to go for it, grab every opportunity that presented itself, and push as far as I could, because one day, I knew there wouldn't be "another day". That day is now.
In all honesty, I thought the kids would pull my wings off. I thought that they'd become more independent and I'd have to give up eventing so I could take them to netball or rugby at weekends. Or maybe the horses would pull my wings off. Maybe they'd retire from eventing and not get replaced. What I didn't know was that I would pull them off myself. I didn't know that when the chance came up for us to move to Japan, that I'd say yes. That when my husband, sentimental now about Vito and Parrot, suggested that we fly one or both out, that I'd shake my head and, fighting back the tears, that I'd say no. Tokyo was not the place for my horses, and they would stay here, with new owners.
So I was in a rush. Did this persuade me to run Advanced at Aston last month? Yeah. Slightly. Now or never - really, truly, now or never. So we did, we so nearly completed, and then on Monday we ran again at Wellington.
Someone asked me (PaddyMonty) in my last blog, whether trouble happened to me, or whether I sought it out. Well, I can tell you quite categorically, that yes, it does indeed find me. The dressage was amazingly ok. 46, no less, and a comment about a talented horse! Good grief, I thought, as I'd created the normal mayhem by going in out of number order, getting confused as to whether I was allowed to be in the arena at all and generally belting about a bit and trying to do some vague approximation of half-pass, was the judging watching the horse next door?!
Every pro and his wife was in the showjumping warm up. Pippa Funnel looked focussed as she warmed up over an oxer. Ludwig Svennerstal floated about in all his glorious blondness. Toddy mooched over on a long rein. William Fox-Pitt cantered quietly out after a nice round. And me. What was I doing? Well, I can tell you just exactly what I was doing in amongst all this. As I cantered in, I saw that fence 1 was down. I considered jumping it anyway, as it would be easier to jump with the top rail off, but my integrity got the better of me and I called to the arena party to put it up. Poor jump 1. After having been studiously ignored by the arena party, its day was really not about to get much better. Because in I came, leaving the warm-up full of pros behind me, and proceeded to quite unashamedly and brazenly straddle the defenceless, unsuspecting fence, before I'd even so much as introduced myself and asked after its health.
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...52063699828383_o_zpss2mdazbq.jpg.html?filters[user]=136295434&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0
Poor Parrot. I'd shut down the canter far too much and he, keen to help me and game for jumping irrespective of my idiocy, had tried. But all he could manage was the first rail and then we stood, lemming-like, stuck in the middle of fence one at Wellington, waiting patiently for the arena party to come and fish us out. Thankfully, it all got somewhat better, and we manage to get on and jump well enough after that.
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...dleton Viviane 2_zpskbwbtmbw.jpg.html?filters[user]=136295434&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0
Vito hadn't fared much better in his 100 at Keysoe, either, so, if there was ever any doubt on the subject, then let it now be dispelled. A career as a professional show jumper is not one I will be pursuing when we move to Tokyo.
All I could do was laugh, and resolve to ease off the handbrake a bit when we set out over the fixed fences. It went mainly well, my super horse utterly saved my backside when I had a wobble at a ditch parallel, but we cantered home and the wider showjump population breathed a collective sigh of relief when it became apparent that the potentially fatal Viv Epidemic that looked set to claim the lives of many thousands of innocent show jumps seemed, for now, to have been stopped in its tracks.
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...dleton Viviane 1_zpszhy1ixkc.jpg.html?filters[user]=136295434&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...dleton Viviane 1_zpsbuk1nlol.jpg.html?filters[user]=136295434&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=1
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...dleton Viviane 1_zpsr8bjadsl.jpg.html?filters[user]=136295434&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=2
Winter. Cold, frosty mornings, the ground hard underfoot. The impatience of fully-clipped horses, the excitement and the adrenalin of chasing through the fields of Norfolk with the Dunston Harriers as a wayward teenager.
Spring. Anticipation, preparation. Eventing dreams that may come true, and eventing hopes that may be shattered. Isleham in the mud, coming home from Tweseldown in the dark, testing myself, finding out where I am really am after the winter off.
Summer. Long, hazy, hot summer. The event season in full swing, now, with plans to be made, entries to be done, ice cream to be eaten after my round. Sweaty, slick wet horses and dust from arena surfaces.
Autumn. Oh, autumn. The leaves fall from the tress now and I frantically hold on to what's left of the season. Don't go, summer. Don't be over for another year. But autumn's a special, happy, nostalgic time for me. South of England, three years ago now. My first ever one-star on Vito. The dream that became reality when we went Intermediate at Oasby. The sheer giddy exhilaration and the possibilities that opened up before me as Vito jumped right through the glass ceiling that existed above Novice in my mind, landed out on a green-flagged course, and just kept on galloping. Last autumn. My first two star. My husband, holding Parrot as he grazed in hand at Aldon, stable quilt on now, the evening already cold.
And this autumn. My last autumn, my last year. Because - we're off. We're leaving the country.
Eventers tend to be a patient bunch. We like to wait for "another day", we assure each other that "there's no rush". We say we have "all the time in the world". Like most things that tend to apply to the majority of normal people, though, I have always had the uneasy feeling that these pearls of wisdom weren't true for me. Every time that I thought it could get no more ridiculous, my life promptly got more ridiculous, until, let's summarise: I had two kids under four, one horse at Advanced, one horse out at BE100, a job with a top US City law firm and various friends and family members to spend time with. There was no doubt about it, I was flying very close to the sun, and if I stayed there for too long, then at some point, my wings would fall off. I didn't know how they'd fall off, but I knew that I had to keep pressing on whilst I still had them; I had to go for it, grab every opportunity that presented itself, and push as far as I could, because one day, I knew there wouldn't be "another day". That day is now.
In all honesty, I thought the kids would pull my wings off. I thought that they'd become more independent and I'd have to give up eventing so I could take them to netball or rugby at weekends. Or maybe the horses would pull my wings off. Maybe they'd retire from eventing and not get replaced. What I didn't know was that I would pull them off myself. I didn't know that when the chance came up for us to move to Japan, that I'd say yes. That when my husband, sentimental now about Vito and Parrot, suggested that we fly one or both out, that I'd shake my head and, fighting back the tears, that I'd say no. Tokyo was not the place for my horses, and they would stay here, with new owners.
So I was in a rush. Did this persuade me to run Advanced at Aston last month? Yeah. Slightly. Now or never - really, truly, now or never. So we did, we so nearly completed, and then on Monday we ran again at Wellington.
Someone asked me (PaddyMonty) in my last blog, whether trouble happened to me, or whether I sought it out. Well, I can tell you quite categorically, that yes, it does indeed find me. The dressage was amazingly ok. 46, no less, and a comment about a talented horse! Good grief, I thought, as I'd created the normal mayhem by going in out of number order, getting confused as to whether I was allowed to be in the arena at all and generally belting about a bit and trying to do some vague approximation of half-pass, was the judging watching the horse next door?!
Every pro and his wife was in the showjumping warm up. Pippa Funnel looked focussed as she warmed up over an oxer. Ludwig Svennerstal floated about in all his glorious blondness. Toddy mooched over on a long rein. William Fox-Pitt cantered quietly out after a nice round. And me. What was I doing? Well, I can tell you just exactly what I was doing in amongst all this. As I cantered in, I saw that fence 1 was down. I considered jumping it anyway, as it would be easier to jump with the top rail off, but my integrity got the better of me and I called to the arena party to put it up. Poor jump 1. After having been studiously ignored by the arena party, its day was really not about to get much better. Because in I came, leaving the warm-up full of pros behind me, and proceeded to quite unashamedly and brazenly straddle the defenceless, unsuspecting fence, before I'd even so much as introduced myself and asked after its health.
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...52063699828383_o_zpss2mdazbq.jpg.html?filters[user]=136295434&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0
Poor Parrot. I'd shut down the canter far too much and he, keen to help me and game for jumping irrespective of my idiocy, had tried. But all he could manage was the first rail and then we stood, lemming-like, stuck in the middle of fence one at Wellington, waiting patiently for the arena party to come and fish us out. Thankfully, it all got somewhat better, and we manage to get on and jump well enough after that.
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...dleton Viviane 2_zpskbwbtmbw.jpg.html?filters[user]=136295434&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0
Vito hadn't fared much better in his 100 at Keysoe, either, so, if there was ever any doubt on the subject, then let it now be dispelled. A career as a professional show jumper is not one I will be pursuing when we move to Tokyo.
All I could do was laugh, and resolve to ease off the handbrake a bit when we set out over the fixed fences. It went mainly well, my super horse utterly saved my backside when I had a wobble at a ditch parallel, but we cantered home and the wider showjump population breathed a collective sigh of relief when it became apparent that the potentially fatal Viv Epidemic that looked set to claim the lives of many thousands of innocent show jumps seemed, for now, to have been stopped in its tracks.
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...dleton Viviane 1_zpszhy1ixkc.jpg.html?filters[user]=136295434&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...dleton Viviane 1_zpsbuk1nlol.jpg.html?filters[user]=136295434&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=1
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...dleton Viviane 1_zpsr8bjadsl.jpg.html?filters[user]=136295434&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=2
