Interested in hearing your pet peeves!! Mine is glitter in any way, shape, or form. List yours below 
Aw, I love glitter! But on other horses, not mine :lol:
I donât really have a pet peeve about other eventerâs attire - but I love âpeople watchingâ the competitors to see all of their fun attire. It is one of my favorite things to do - see all the fun, whimsical combinations people come up with.
I guess I have one pet peeve at shows and itâs when someone is hogging the entire aisle (untacking/tacking up, what have you) and I canât get by them with my horse or have to wait, or have to play minefield when I walk all over the catastrophic upheaval that is their show trunk and paraphernalia on the groundâŠ
2 rule related ones⊠One is when people donât know them. And then whine about them.
The other is when schooling shows âfollowâ USEA rules but kind of selectively. Like, you can have as many stops as long as youâre safe and your coach can coach you buuuuuut we canât release the ribbons 10 minutes early because rules.
[QUOTE=beowulf;8740808]
Aw, I love glitter! But on other horses, not mine :lol:
I donât really have a pet peeve about other eventerâs attire - but I love âpeople watchingâ the competitors to see all of their fun attire. It is one of my favorite things to do - see all the fun, whimsical combinations people come up with.
People watching is my favorite!! I love observing how people clean up for shows, always gives me ideas of what to do with my own:winkgrin:
Making me hunt to find the optimum time. At an event I went to last week it was written on a white board right next to the gate to xc warm up- where the steward was standing. I had to get someone on the ground to tell me what it was because the person was standing in front of it and it wasnât readable from horseback anyway. I donât always have someone with me so that was annoying.
Just put it on the course map or at the office.
Start times being fiddled around for the convenience of trainers. (I havenât seen this, but I recently heard of it happening. Please no.)
Riders taking over a section of the stabling area and making it difficult or dangerous for others to pass the aisle due to their: dogs, trunks/muck buckets, chairs, saddle stands, etc. spread all over in disarray. We all need to share space with consideration for others, as well as for safety!
People who use being an eventer as an excuse for dirty tack and grimy saddle pads. The eventers I know and respect are upstanding horsewomen (and men). They prioritize clean and well fitting tack at all times. It sets my teeth on edge when someone defends being unclean or using unsafe dried out tack under the guise that âIâm an eventer and not some dressage divaâ.
So I guess it isnât a true eventing pet peeve but more like a backyard âeventingâ pet peeve.
Grace, I have to disagree with you on the value of clean tack. Some eventers work a lot of hours. If you are working 60 hours per week, riding the horse takes priority, in my mind, over cleaning tack. My friend used to not ride her horse during the week before an event because she had to clean her tack. Her prioritizing clean tack over riding the horse was one of my pet peeves. As long as the horse is well cared for, fit, and well shod, dirty tack doesnât bother me.
[QUOTE=AKB;8741604]
Grace, I have to disagree with you on the value of clean tack. Some eventers work a lot of hours. If you are working 60 hours per week, riding the horse takes priority, in my mind, over cleaning tack. My friend used to not ride her horse during the week before an event because she had to clean her tack. Her prioritizing clean tack over riding the horse was one of my pet peeves. As long as the horse is well cared for, fit, and well shod, dirty tack doesnât bother me.[/QUOTE]
I totally get what you are saying, but when I was a barn manager working 70+hrs a week, I still found time to clean my tack off. I do think showing in dirty tack does toe the line of being somewhat disrespectful â I guess I could liken it to attending a board meeting in dirty clothes. I usually did it every other ride. Your friendâs prioritizing does sound a little off though, of course the horse being the primary priority is paramount.
I clean bits and hose saddle pads and boots/bellboots daily but I clean tack weekly. I work over 40 hours per week, and typically around 55, and I take care of all barn work, mowing etc etc. There is no way I can ride 2-3 horses per day and do everything. I also do not thoroughly sweep around the barn every day and I mow the barn yard every 10 days or so. Something has to give.
But I do not think my âdirtyâ tack is at all noticeable. I pride myself in having clean and trimmed horses and neat tack. Just the way I was brought up, I guess, haha. 
Pet peeves: competitors who blame everything but themselves for poor performances (it was the bit, my saddle, my trainer, yadayada). Bleh!
Ill-behaved dogs at events. Dogs who pee on my hay, dogs who crap in front of the stall areas, dogs who try to steal my sandwich. This has happened so much that at the last event I found a loose dog wandering around my trailer so I checked her collar for a name tag and was planning to take her to the office when her owner saw me and claimed the dog.
[QUOTE=AKB;8741604]
My friend used to not ride her horse during the week before an event because she had to clean her tack. Her prioritizing clean tack over riding the horse was one of my pet peeves. As long as the horse is well cared for, fit, and well shod, dirty tack doesnât bother me.[/QUOTE]
How can it take one week to clean your tack?!
Which brings me to my pet peeveâtoo much tack! Especially now that I am bringing two horses to events. 4 saddles to clean and three bridles. Fortunately I use a neck strap and not a breast plate. (But it still doesnât take me a week!)
Too much tack! Yes! The reason I prefer 3 days to one day HTs is that right there :lol:
People who think everyone should wear jackets when the rules state otherwise & think their Opinion > Rules. Get off your high or not so high horse Especially w/the aforementioned tack changes. If I go solo to an event I am doing *everything. Iâd like to be able to wear colored breeches for dressage due to the filth that accumulates from simply unloading, setting up waters, hay, grooming, and tacking up :lol: A jacket may be traditional attire but thereâs nothing traditional about 3 phases in one day. If Iâm not hot, nervous, or fearful for my jackets well-being, Iâll happily throw it on. And if you dare ask me where my jacket is, there shall be no explanation outside of, âIn the trailer.â That being said, Iâd love a deep burgundy jacket, and of course canât justify that purchase w/my attitude towards jackets :lol:
Pony tails, braids, any kind of flapping hair that makes it harder for the jump judge to see your number on cross country. It isnât cute or attractive. Jump judges are volunteers that events canât run without, making our jobs harder is incredibly frustrating!!! Every chance I get when I am not competing I jump judge and I seriously want to hang out in warm up and cut pony tails off!
Being told in warm up, after youâve started warming up, that you can either go RIGHT NOW, 10 minutes earlier than your ride time, or you have to go 15 minutes after your ride time because they need to fit in some BNRâs and their students who just showed up to the in gate out of order. maybe hire an assistant or donât ride 8 horses in one show?
Corollary to the above, ring stewards letting BNRâw get away with hogging the warm up fences and jacking them up over the allowed height. Not only is it rude, itâs dangerous to the other competitors.
Basically all the things that made my blood boil at h/j shows, creeping into eventing.
Warm up chaos
Trainers who monopolize 25% of the warm up area, basically giving lessons to their clients. Folks, itâs WARM UP, not a place for remedial work.
FYI the issues about trainers in the warm-up rings was brought up at the town hall meetings. Please write to USEA. They need to address the issues and a directive needs to come from them.
Ring stewards are volunteers. Yes there is a rule, the only mention, that the height in the warm-up has to be the height of the division that is going at the time. But the ring person stands at duty all day, usually does not have a shade shelter, works none stop not like some other job positions, keeps tracking who is present and sending them to the other rings. Policing the trainers is something that can turn out very contentious so a bigger directive from USEA would be useful to help define and back up enforcement.
It is very annoying to be able to mentally focus when people on foot are standing mindlessly in front of approach lines and repeatedly changing the fence heights. Or hogging the fences. The only person touching the fences should be resetting poles.
Trainers and riders who hike up the jumps in stadium while youâre trying to jump. And for extra giggles⊠leave them hiked up!
As a volunteer crowd-minder â spectators on X/C who just. donât. get. that when I blow my whistle, they need to get out of the way NOW. Or anyone who mouths off to me about it. I am generally shy and quiet, but I have a BIG outside voice Iâll use if someoneâs kid is about to be run down by a galloping horse, or if a group wonât move their d**n asses out of the way!
