Showing

[Djones]

You tell your trainer and let them help shop you out. You need someone to keep you on safe horses.

[fivestrideline]

OP, I think you have really great ideas. I understand the desire to be Good At All The Things, and I know a lot of that pressure is coming from parents, peers, and high school guidance counselors. You seem well spoken and well situated, and the therapy suggestion is a good one actually.

The reason posters here are sending up some flares is because what you’re saying is conflicting a bit with what’s possible and what’s likely. Here’s what we know:

• you’re 15ish, in Silicon Valley
• you do not own a horse, are leasing at current barn
• current barn has show quality lesson horses (implied to be rated shows, but maybe not?)
• you’re switching barns in October?
• you’re “retraining” a horse as a hunter, but missing a lot of the basics of how to do that, likely due to a lack of relevant trainer support at the current barn for that endeavor
• you have big dreams for lots of showing, a lucrative career, an international internship, but also catch riding or being a working student or learning to braid
• your parents are apparently willing to fund a lease and as many rated shows as you want to do, but you’re not currently doing that - and they’re also apparently okay with you learning to braid from strangers and sleeping in your car at shows
• you are taking a lots of demanding HS classes, play two instruments competitively (but also only a couple hours a week?), have a job or two, only have a couple hours of time for the barn every day but also have a 30 minute drive there, somehow catch ride and school horses other than your lease in that time, while practicing braiding and doing all your homework.

To me, that’s a lot of conflicting info. I’ve been in your shoes not all that long ago, and you flat out don’t have the time in the day to do all of this at the levels you say. Even without sleeping, like I did in HS! I think there’s a bit of innocent misrepresentation going on, but some posters here have been through some disingenuous roller coaster threads before and can be prickly about it (understandably).

You don’t need to tell us all the details of your life. In fact, you shouldn’t. Your posts are just a bit all over the place, which makes sense for when you’re 15 and trying to figure out what you want in life! That’s okay! Asking questions about what is possible, whether you’re on the right track with riding, whether your program is a good fit for your goals, what careers might fund the hobby, etc is great for COTH. Learning to sift through what’s relevant and what’s not (and to let things roll off your back when presented a bit harshly) will serve you well going forward.

This got long. Sorry

[julia.eq.h]

Thank you!!

[fivestrideline]

Continuing with a separate post for advice on what to do:

Whatever trainer you settle with, make sure they’ve got successful students currently doing what you want realistically (3’ Medals, or junior hunters, or whatever you decide). Then, have a sit down with them and your parents and talk goals and budget and options. Make it clear that you have a lot of outside commitments, but you want to do this horse thing to some level of success. They’ll be able to talk you through what’s realistic with your allotted time, or what you can do with a few more hours a week in the saddle. They’ll be able to tell you what it’ll cost to obtain and maintain a horse that can pack you around the ring when you aren’t riding multiple horses every day.

You’ve gotten some great advice over past threads, and this one too. I think it’s time for some IRL conversations with good people (including a therapist) to help focus and guide you. I think you’ll be able to find away to keep horses in your life in a fulfilling way IF you stay realistic and don’t burn out at age 19. SO many people do.

I’m done now

[IPEsq]

I’m also a bit confused about your goals and priorities and time, but I can share with you what I did in high school.

Initially, I wanted to have time for other sports and art and friends and such. But I also had dreams of indoors and BigEq finals.(I’d already done pony medals and the 3’ local medals). My parents were willing to support me, but their condition was that I needed to make it my job. If I didn’t reach all of the goals, fine. But I needed to put the work in. We bought my “move up” horse, a green sport bred TB (back when that was a thing) 5 year old with questionable X-rays and a lot of talent. I had to go back down to the 3’ because the rideability was so awful at first. In hindsight, today I would have chickened out pointing that horse at 3’ a lot of the time . My last year, we leased an equitation horse with no finals experience who had dumped and injured his owner but had the potential and flatwork training to do all the things, because that was what our budget could get.

I gave up other team/school sports. I was gone a lot of Fridays from school. I didn’t have a big social life. I tried to ride multiple horses after school just about every day. I took several AP classes…calculus, physics, English, French, history (the college I chose did not grant credit, only placement). I was 3rd in my HS class. My personal essay actually focused on the challenges of bringing along a green horse as teaching time management, work ethic, the ability to handle all of the ups and downs of the process. It was a way I could spin horses into something colleges would like. Later in high school, we’d usually get one free period where I’d knock out most of my homework. My parents got me a laptop to write essays while away (this was kind of a big deal at the time…a glorified typewriter).

I also rode anything else I could get offered to ride. Nice horses who needed some exercise at shows. Some catch rides. Fresh OTTBs. Naughty ponies. Some jumpers looking for a career change. I also learned a little bit about imported horses. I had good trainers who pushed me to learn how to ride and how to train, not how to just ride a prepped, finished horse…couldn’t afford any of that. When I got my license, I learned to haul. Sometimes in the summer, I’d ride 6 horses a day plus show my own. And I’d be cleaning tack and helping with show set up and tear down, bandaging legs, taking out braids, helping to set jumps, etc. I was not making money doing this. I was earning time in the saddle and building a network. Dinner was sometimes free cheese at the exhibitor’s party.

I did qualify for a lot of what I was trying to do. Even got some ribbons at indoors. Won a state level 3’6” eq final and was 2nd in another. The 5 year old difficult 3’ horse turned into junior hunter zone horse of the year. It really was my job on top of maintaining good grades. It still cost my parents an incredible amount of money, and the show bills after some prize money was not anywhere near the eye watering level the costs are today.

You are starting with less experience, so it is good your competition goals are in line with that. But if you want to take the opportunity of your parents’ funding to really learn to ride, you likely aren’t going to get that 2-3 times a week for a couple hours and for a few hours a day in the summer. Transportation is definitely a drag. Some of us in the same school would carpool. Once I was driving, I regularly gave rides to others from school to the barn.

You don’t need to practice your instruments that much because you are now proficient at the level you want to be at. How many hours did it take you to get there? You are at a lesser level with riding. You have to put in the time. High school was pretty easy for me as far as getting the grades and AP scores without loads of time studying. If you need more study time, then you may have to give up something else to put the hours in with horses and have enough time for school.

Finally, what are the qualification requirements of the medals you are targeting? Top X in the yearly standings? A blue ribbon in a qualifier? X points? Be sure that the qualifying standards are achievable with the amount of shows you can reasonably target. It would be best to have something not too demanding and then to use the rest of your available shows to do other classes for your own mileage. If you have to campaign every week to make up for some months of not showing, maybe that is not the final for you. I never tried for WIHS finals, for example. It was too many jumping classes to do all year long (qualifiers are 2 phases). Especially when I had only one horse for both hunters and eq, which was all of the time until the one year we leased the eq horse. Sometimes I would do them for practice after I’d qualified for most everything else. And we also didn’t have big numbers for some of the year, so not big points available compared to other zones. Wasn’t worth the wear and tear on the horse for a lesser chance of making the final.