AECs on the West coast?

[trubandloki]

@enjoytheride

Rain from the sky can be vastly different from a pond full of sharks to many horses!

Very well said!!!

My horse stands out in the rain all the time.
She never runs for shelter when there is a storm.

But stepping in a puddle/pond/water is not something she will do willingly.

[endlessclimb]

She would be BFFs with my Old Man. Should you DARE ride out in the rain, you will get all sorts of strange head contortions and crow hopping around.

ERGH a drop! ERGH another one!

[Bluey]

@enjoytheride

Rain from the sky can be vastly different from a pond full of sharks to many horses!

My own horse fell in water and it was a solid year before he’d enter water at more than a careful, probing walk!

[poltroon]

@MNEventer

Frontal lobe understand “competing against yourself” and never ending self improvement. Lizard brain like shiny pretty ribbon. Put shiny ribbon on wall in home. Shiny pretty ribbon provide motivation for lizard brain to keep going with sport. Keep lizard brain and frontal lobe in harmony, happy human that keeps paying entry fees.

Speaking seriously, adding a horse/rider/junior division costs very little in terms of the total cost of a horse trail. An extra set of ribbons and/or prizes, but that might be enough to keep people coming back. Steepleview in MN gave ribbons to 8th place and they were magnificent and fancy, tails two feet long with giant ruffled rosettes. It was such a great experience to ride around with that flapping from your horses bridle.

Just want to add that Shiny Pretty Ribbon also creates a focus for memory of a great dopamine hit that helps you remember how much you love spending your weekends and your dollars on all the work that is a horse trial.

It’s not about getting one every time, but the possibility that you might get one, maybe even in the most coveted color, is still very motivating and a reason to do that instead of say a clinic or just schooling. And ensuring that as many people as possible are motivated to go to competitions (where the competition itself is also just the tip of the iceberg of the commitment) is how we have a critical mass to have competitions at all. There’s got to be something to motivate the rest of the field to come so that the best have a field to beat.

I’m all about the journey but our very expensive sport demands so much of everyone. If each additional $2 ribbon generates an additional 5 $300 entries so your event can break even, you absolutely should. And it’s overall beneficial for the sport to increase participation.

[Libby2563]

@trubandloki

The great thing about eventing - those who think it is great to compete against people like Boyd can do it and those who would find competing against someone like Boyd as an added stress to an already nervous making experience do not have compete against him, they can compete in their own division.

Well, you can express a preference. But then it’s up to the organizer and a lot of things outside their control (number of entries, conflicts with dressage judges, multiple horses at a level, etc). At Hunt Club last weekend there was an Open Prelim and a Prelim Rider with one rider each, which was a new one for me, while Modified was just Open A and Open B with 7 and 9. Lauren Nicholson was in A and Lynn Symansky was in B. I assume there was a reason for the weird Prelim split, but I don’t know what. Who you ride against really isn’t in your control, at the end of the day.

[OverandOnward]

@Willesdon

An amateur shouldn’t think that they were beaten on an unfair playing field but rather learn what the professional did to achieve that win in those circumstances.

That’s myopic. And patronizing.

One of the things the pro ‘did to win’ was turn up on a far superior horse to mine – likely paid for by someone else.

Unlike the pro, everything I do is financed by me. My money. My time. My horse. My choices.

Gaits are everything for a great dressage score ‘to win’. Those of us on older horses or cheaper horses can jump all clean with no time faults, and are still in a world where nothing we do will overcome the fancy horses under the pros. (Kind of like the hunters, actually.)

I don’t live in fairy tales. I do come to a competition to be competitive on a level-ish playing field. I will not be entering a division with a high % of pros on fancy horses. I can come as a jump judge, without my horse, to observe what the pro did to win.

I did stop entering a couple of events where I was getting chucked into divisions against pros and their young expensive prospects aimed at the UL’s, where I had zero shot at any ribbon, ever, on my horse with his middle-aged gaits.

I don’t expect a ribbon every time. I do expect to be competitive, not class-filler from the get-go.

Otherwise that time & money can be spent at a clinic or other outing. At one event, there were a few of us in that boat who went as volunteers but didn’t enter. The organizers asked us why we weren’t entering, and we told them. They said they understood.

The judgments of others about my choices aren’t meaningful to me.

@trubandloki

The great thing about eventing - those who think it is great to compete against people like Boyd can do it and those who would find competing against someone like Boyd as an added stress to an already nervous making experience do not have compete against him, they can compete in their own division.

Exactly.

People with other ideas of competing against Boyd can do that their way. More power to you, hope you win against him.

And let the rest of us exist peacefully with our own choices. Without your grand judgments on those choices.

[evtrmom]

I realized that I commented on this thread a while back. I’m happy to report that I did compete at the KHP in 2024 and finished 10th in the BNMA division! I’m hoping to go back in 2026. We had the absolute best time and soaked in the whole experience. Highly recommend doing it if you can.

[rogueknits]

@leighbo009

I wonder if it was thought to do it like pony club does. They have east & west champs most years & then a centrally located full championship every so many years. I think that would be fun! But I don’t know, they may have proposed that at one time?

Pony Club no longer does the East/West/Central championships anymore. They were increasingly unable to get enough competitors for the West and Central championships, resulting in the scheduled Central championships for 2023 being canceled. Numbers were also down in the East on “non-Festival” years (the years between the every three years nationwide Championships). Starting in 2024, it was decided to drop the divided Championships and just have one Championships every other year in Kentucky. Which is sad, but understandable when you looked at the financials.