Today has been extremely busy for me. I went to help my riding club team at the horse trials qualifier and it was a long but very fun day.
I got to walk the cross country course with the team, then it was all hands on deck to tack up and get the first riders down to the dressage warm up.
Once the first rider was finished with dressage I helped adjust their tack for jumping, then I became our team’s chief pole putter-upper in the warm up ring. I spent several hours adjusting poles and getting rather sandy in the process.
I also got drenched – when I left the lorry it was blazing sunshine and I was worried about sunburn but before too long there was an almighty crack of tbunder and the heavens opened. I was in the middle of the warm up at the time and had no chance to get my coat.
By the time our last team member was finished show jumping most of the others had finished completely so once I’d helped her get ready for her cross country round it was time to start removing studs and getting the horses booted up and ready for the journey home.
I had a great day helping out and hopefully learned a lot too. I managed not to fall asleep on the way home but I was definitely not the world’s greatest conversationalist!
It’s good to be able to help others when we are not competing ourselves. I think we can all learn something even when not in the saddle ourselves.
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Oh absolutely, you can learn a lot from watching others and helping out. Writing for dressage judges is especially educational!
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