@RSEventer you might just be my hero. Also my mom has been a public school teacher my entire life - this is her last year working. I love teachers.
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All because of a mask mandate? Really?
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OP, do you think having a close family member who is ultra competitive impacts your goals? I was in a relationship for years with a man who was a very competitive dressage rider. Our life revolved around clinics and competitions, and my means were far more modest than his, so I usually was only ever there on groom duty. I bought a young, unbroke horse because that was the only way I could afford a horse with the raw quality of movement that could hang with his horses. After 8 months, I realized that the horse I spent my savings on and spent many thousands more on professional training, did not have a temperament I enjoyed working with. So I dumped the man and sold the mare.
I know you can’t dump your sister, but the stress in being someone’s emotional support hamster at horse shows is heavy and takes its toll. Maybe you should try staying home sometime, or going and purely being a spectator. Or in the age of COVID, only carry her water bottle!
After selling the mare, I purchased an OTTB whose conformation is every kind of wrong that you can imagine, is a plain mover and has 3 cankles. But he is one of the kindest horses I have ever met and perfect for me in every way. This is a horse that I never would have considered even going to see while I was in my previous relationship because of how funny looking he is. But I’ll be darned if he doesn’t have the best walk/canter and canter/walk transitions this “recovering dressage queen” has ever ridden. He is one of the most enjoyable rides I’ve ever had.
Now that I’ve been distancing myself from the very competitive side of riding, having less competitive goals is something that I am less embarrassed about. I am boarding at a smaller, more utilitarian barn that used to be a race horse training facility, and that’s been helpful from both a cost and mental health perspective. There is no ring, just a galloping track and about 100 acres of paddocks, and you find an unoccupied field when you want to ride. I’m able to take more joy in the smaller victories in riding, and my show anxiety has left. I plan on going to two competitions in 2021 (I’ve not competed since 2016), and if the show photographer doesn’t get any photos of me wincing in shame during my rides, I’m going to treat myself to Chipotle. That’s an attainable goal that everyone can appreciate and have a giggle over. And it reflects how, until I find a sugar daddy, the biggest contribution I can make to the competitive horse scene is comedic relief. And that’s totally ok.
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All because of a mask mandate? Really?
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Yeah, eventing in 90 degree heat with southern humidity while wearing a mask sucks.
But more specifically because of officials acting like assholes in enforcing the mandate. The announcer calling out people over the PA system who were walking XC with no-one around them, then singling out individuals, “Lady in the green shirt walking toward SJ. Yeah you. It’s a mask not neckwear.” Roving bands of officials in stabling calling young people on the carpet and embarrassing them in front of friends when they were alone in their stalls with their horse. Quite frankly that is not who we are as a sport and I’m not willing to participate in the belittling of people, especially when the rules don’t even have a basis in science. Wearing a mask outside in the heat, humidity, wind and sunshine (all things that kill the virus in a matter of moments) is pointless and anyone telling you otherwise is either an idiot or thinks you are an idiot. Either way it’s not a good look for the governing body.
I do this for fun and that’s not fun. If you think it is, then have at it.
Oh, and I have antibodies–there is absolutely no scientific evidence that I pose anything but a tiny fraction of a minuscule of a threat. I’m happy to wear a mask as a curtesy to you because you are frightened, but if you’re going to act like a jerk I’m going to stop wearing it.
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Show management has to be picky about the rules because violations could cost them money and licensing to run future events. Don’t call them asshole for trying to preserve their ability to hold events in years to come.
I’m glad you won’t be out showing because you don’t sound like a pleasant person. I also have antibodies because I had COVID, and it was horrible. I don’t wish it on anybody. I happily wear a mask out of respect, and I would not belittle any one by saying, “if you’re frightened, I’ll wear it.” I’m healthy and in the prime of my life and I was in bed for 3 weeks, I don’t want anyone else to have to go through that.
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There is absolutely a way to enforce rules without belittling people. I’m not going to support officials letting the worst of their authoritarian impulses come to fore. One of the young women I was with was at her first recognized event. It may be her last because she thinks eventers are awful people based on her experience. Is that really who we are?
If show management is under threat then that is just one more indication that the governing body has allowed the worst of their impulses to override science and common sense.
So now according to you I not only have to wear a mask when it isn’t necessary (which I faithfully do) I have to do it with the Right intentions™ as approved by people by you. Who is the unpleasant person again?
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If I take away nothing else from this thread, it will be that 1) thanks to @RSEventer, I’m going to make “embrace the suck” my own personal motto.
And 2) inspired by @Can_tFindMyWhip, I’m going to start listing my profession as “emotional support hamster.”
#2021goals
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Sincere question - How do you suggest they enforce the rule, that even they do not like I am sure, when so many people are just ignoring it?
I believe the rule was made ‘always’ because too many people were saying ‘oh, it is OK, I am with these people all the time’.
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different poster but at the more reasonable shows I attended, people who were close to other people, like 6 feet, mostly complied and if they didn’t, the steward rightly interfered. But a solitary person in the field, no one would say anything because it’s just unnecessary and any person with half a brain would realize that was safe.
I slept in my trailer at those shows, and when I was at the trailer 1/2 a mile from the nearest person, you bet I didn’t wear my mask or feel that was a problem. At some point, logic needs to kick in.
The CDC doesn’t even recommend wearing masks outside if you are farther away than 6 feet from others, and it never has. It is hard to argue that wearing one alone in the field is protecting anyone else.
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I guess I feel like getting to compete at all during this last crazy year-- often on private property-- was a tremendous privilege and being asked to wear a mask even when it wasn’t strictly necessary was a worthwhile sacrifice. Similarly I do believe that wearing a helmet and vest is useful for protection but even if I didn’t I understand that it’s a requirement at competitions and often (helmet) and sometimes (vest) just to flat or hack on someone else’s property and if I really couldn’t bear to wear it I still wouldn’t blame them for wanting to lower their risk by requiring it. But then masks were required even at schooling shows up here and people were generally willing to comply.
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I have to tell my guys - pipefiitters, operators, mechanics - all day, every day, to put their mask on. At some point, it gets old. I shouldn’t have to tell them over and over and over and over.
And if they told me that it isn’t based in science? I would tell them that this is private property, and they can clock out if they don’t like it.
Read it again. Private. Property. You don’t like the rules, or don’t plan to follow the rules (whether they make sense or not), don’t bother showing up.
Just think - if everyone followed the rules, your friend at her first recognized event wouldn’t have had a bad experience. But because he/she, and others, think they’re above the rules, or that “their rules” make more sense than the show’s rules, the show organizers have to go around telling people to put their damned masks on.
You are on private property. Your opinion officially doesn’t matter at that point, whether it’s logical or not.
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What is it with COTH threads shifting to a whooooole other topic lately? 
The original one interested me, but at this point bickering over masks has become the human equivalent of boredom cribbing.
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Lately?
COTH has always done this.
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What she said. I’m also on the west coast but have an LQ horse trailer so hotel fees are out. However, these events are not in my neighborhood so hauling in each day is not feasible. I have to take two days off work to arrive on Thursday and Friday is dressage. The one recognized event that comes to mind in way of costs is around $210 for the entry plus another $120 for a stall, $35 administration fee, and $15 stall deposit to make sure you strip your stall when you leave. Add in $100 for diesel, $50 for food, $30 for alcohol 
not to mention hay, extra shavings, grain, and you’re right up there at $550 give or take. Luckily my work has a generous PTO policy so not losing money there.
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Part of me agrees with you, but … no. For example: organizers can scream at people about parking in the wrong place, or they can rope off the wrong places and/or provide signage. And some will open a shut gate and park wherever the hell THEY want.
A few years back I was working the gate at a facility, and the only rule I was to enforce was to only allow boarders to drive to the barn, all others were to turn left and park in the field. Over the course of the day, the hunter judge was a complete bitchcow at me because I didn’t know who she was (I ride dressage, bitch) and more than one boarder ripped me a new orifice for stopping them to ask if they were a boarder or there for the show in order to know where to point them. Only ONE later approached me to apologize.
So, either I get pissy and quit volunteering OR I realize some people are real jerks some or all of the time. If your pal quits eventing over a mask call out, she wasn’t that engaged from the jump.
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I’m just marveling that you managed to find a straight male dressage rider. 
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They also had to be picky because people fought them when the rules were “open” to interpretation like requiring a mask when within 6’ of another person. If so many people weren’t complete jerks about it, they wouldn’t have issued an blanket 24/7 mask mandate. But there were plenty of times were people got downright rude with stewards and officials when told they needed a mask because they were within the 6’ rule.
At least at the KHP, USEF was out and issuing warnings at shows. I was at two that got threatened to shut down on the first day because of people not abiding by the rules, so I completely understand why they were strict about enforcement-not worth the risk for them.
Me personally? It sucked wearing a mask in the south in July when it was 100000 degrees out and as a resulted, I opted to not show the rest of the summer and waited until it got cooler out. But for that show, I would be super PISSED if my horse didn’t get to compete after i spent all of that money just because someone didn’t want to wear a mask when they KNEW that was the requirements before they even entered the show.
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Totally agree, which is why I stopped showing last year at recognized events. Yet here you are with the mob squad criticizing me for making exactly that choice. I have limited tolerance for brain dead, stupid people–I know this about myself so try to schedule accordingly–if you have more tolerance then, again, have at it.
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As someone who has not participated in COTH very long, one thing I have learned about @endlessclimb is that she’s not persuaded by “the mob’s” reasoning. I respect this about her, even when I think that “the mob” is right.
O/w, I generally agree with the reactions to your original argument. It smacks of being a snowflake (or surrounding yourself with them - someone is not going to go back to a recognized event because a steward told her to put on a mask? Really? Godspeed with the horse world). But I am really only here to defend @endlessclimb and her much more succinct rebuttal to your position.
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Let me start by telling you how it should NOT be done. In 40 years of eventing I have never heard an announcer calling out people, singling them out and identifying them over the PA system for breaking a rule–much less using sarcasm to do it. I have never heard a judge shout across a ring at an offending competitor. I’ve never heard an official raise their voice in a barn full of people calling out to someone down an aisle. So why don’t we start there and say judges and officials shouldn’t be asses when calling out people for breaking rules and also that it is not within the purview of announcers to suddenly take up the mantel of enforcer. These people didn’t behave this way before 2020 and there is no reason to think it is a reasonable thing to do starting in 2020. Can we at lest agree on that?
Let’s also clarify that no-one is “asking” you to wear a mask as suggested in another post. It is being mandated. If you actually talked to the property owners you’d find that for many of them their own wills and desires are not being taken in account by USEF. On first pass I’d be more than happy supporting a situation where the USEF butts out of the issue and the property owners determine their own policies.
But let’s also be clear here that the mask mandate is outside the bounds and recommendation of the WHO, outside the bounds and recommendation of the CDC, outside the bounds, recommendations and law of most state and local governments and their health departments. It is also a rule that was created outside the bounds of the governing body’s normal rule making procedures, without membership input and and without any scientific evidence of its effectiveness. Seriously, there are no scientific studies that would confirm that wearing a mask outside is a reasonable safety precaution. Yet here we are.
So what happened. People don’t respond real well to a mandate that no-one except the most crazed covid-zealots who don’t bother to educate themselves think will have any bearing on “safety.” A rule that has no backing in the scientific literature or the organizations whose job it is to monitor that literature and make recommendations to the public. This should not have been a shocker that people weren’t inspired to comply. What is a shocker is that the USEF thought the way to go here was to double down and make it a zero sum, zero tolerance mandate.
We have all kinds of rules that are not “all or nothing” rules. You may carry a dressage whip but it can’t be longer than 47 inches. You can inquire/protest a score but you have to do it with 30 minutes of posting. How about you need to wear a mask but only within 6’ of other people? A rule with a qualification just like lots of other rules we mange to monitor and enforce. You know it would be like a compromise–something that brings people together instead of driving them apart.
I’m sorry I simply don’t buy that when you incorporate a stupid rule that people don’t want to follow for really legitimate reasons that the fix is to make it even more draconian. It is just as easy to call out, card, officially warn, or eliminate people for breaking the 6’ rule as it is for breaking a zero tolerance rule. Eliminate or fine one gaggle of competitors at one show and you’re done. Within 3 minutes the entire show grounds knows you’re serious. With in 3 hours the rest of the horse showing world will know too. In fact the only punishment I’ve heard of at an event is having to stand there and listen to an official say stupid things or be berated, or be embarrassed. That is not a very effective way to manage things. So we’ve got a rule that is not effective managing risk that isn’t being manage well at all. That’s a winner.
I would also like to repeat at all the non recognized shows I went to in 2020 most at major venues I didn’t witness a single person who was unwilling to comply to having masks on when they were around the office, around the warm up and in gates around spectators, when they were walking through barns outside their own space. It’s funny how most people are more than willing to behave in a reasonable manner when you ask them to do reasonable things. To bad the USEF is too stupid to punish those that are unwilling to be reasonable and instead stick it to the whole horse showing world–not the least of it being organizers and venues.
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