Wandin - Day 1

It's 6:10am in the morning, pitch black, all good, except that the horse won't get on the float. Finally she relents. As we drive through the farm gate I remember that my membership card is neither signed nor stamped.

We arrive at Wandin. It's already a bustling living equine town. Tents, floats, trucks, yards, and of course horses. I find our allocated yard, put Princess in it and go to the events office. I take out my cards, careful to hold the membership card well out of view. I smile at the lady over the counter, and hand over my horse trials and dressage cards. "And your membership card", she gazes at me over her spectacles. I hand it over, straight away owning up that it's not signed. "I'm sorry, but you can't compete". "No, you don't understand. I'm a working mum. Work, child, running the house, running the farm, training a horse. It's an honest mistake", my brain screams at her. But on the surface I smile as kindly as I can and explain "Look, I am a paid up member, my club president signed off my entry form, we must be able to do something." She nearly kills me with her gaze, but in the end senior personnel gets involved, phone calls are made to my club president, and club secretary. The club secretary says she's on her way with the stamp. "You must have your membership card stamped and signed, both, by 4pm today, or you will be disqualified", says the spectacled lady as she hands me my number. Phew. I race back to my horse.

Now, what time is it? I was supposed to start my warm up half an hour ago. Great. Wide open spaces, sweeping views, and only 20 minutes to warm up Princess. They must be joking. I'll be lucky if that horse goes into the arena at all.

I pass the gear check, only because the gear check lady is scared that Princess might stand on her. Then I do circles. Lots of them. Little ones, medium ones. Careful to put pressure on one rein at a time. Just try and keep her head down, try and relax her. As I'm about to start my dressage test, I murmur something about the market to the next competitor.

The dressage test goes well. We follow it pretty much to the letter, and the first canter is actually really good. I don't care what the judge will say.

The minute we're out of the arena, Princess starts freaking out again, and she trit trots sideways all the way back to her yard, ambulance ambling along behind.

Back at the yard I unsaddle. My girlfriend joins me with her two year old daughter and we forget the mad horse while we go and get a coffee.

We walk the showjumping course. It's brilliant. Ten jumps. It sort of spirals to the right for the first half, then takes a sudden turn left, and spirals that way before finishing off with an S. But there's nothing hard about the distances. So it will be rider errors that will bring people to grief. Not horse errors. Brilliant, I say.

My dad catches up with us, and it's time to saddle up. In the showjumping warm up, Princess starts having flashes of calmness. Now there's a new concept. The jumps help to focus her attention, and she becomes calmer on her approach. A few more jumps, and she's calmer on departure as well. We're ready.

I trot into the showjumping ring, and present myself to the judges. The bell rings. We set off. I'm working overtime to ensure she jumps the first jump. As a result we have a rail down at jump two. Then I realise. This horse is going to jump everything for me. All I need to do is set her up. I do my job. Princess does hers. The rest of the course is clear. Cheers all around.

What a relief. Back at the float we get quite jovial. But can't rest on our laurels. Time to walk the cross country course. Grade 3 have just set off across country, and we "ooh" and "aah" between jumps.

The cross country course is resonably inviting to start off with. But in the middle it puts up a few challenges. The back of the little pretend tractor is very square and solid. The brush fence is high. The chute is also square and solid. The dog is narrow. The seat looks intimidating. The combination should be jumped at an angle. Then there are the eyes. The water is an easy drop, but should be approached slowly. The drop and the log demand respect. The zig zag is on the way home, yet afterwards one must double back and jump the narrow photo fence.

All sorts of things go through my mind, but above all "I should be doing this course on Crownie!".

The phone rings. It's the club secretary. I run to my car. The card gets signed and stamped, both. Then it's off to the events office. The spectacled lady looks kindly at me and smiles, as she inspects the green card, oozing with fresh ink. She crosses my name off the black list. (The list is not short).

The sun starts setting, my friend and father leave for the day. Princess is not eating or drinking, her fur is matted with dried sweat. Her sides are sunken in. I jump into her yard and give her a pat. On the other side of the driveway I spot a little patch of grass. We walk over and after a good look around Princess puts her head down to eat the green juicy stuff. Later, back in the yard, she eats her dinner, and I brush all the sweat out of her coat.

The rest of the day is spent putting things in the float, and getting the car ready to sleep in. Then shower, and off to dinner. The eventing crowd is a friendly bunch, and I feel very welcome when I sit down next to some people. Turns out, they are almost my next door neighbours!

Finally, I bed down in the car for the night. I gaze at the stars through the back window, and go over the cross country course again, and again, and again.

The night before Wandin

I groom Princess till she's shining bright. I trim her mane till she looks like a seasoned eventer. I wash her tail till it's silky smooth. I put the horses in the Red Rum paddock and give them a feed.

I pack the car, ticking every little item off my list. Sabina and I have a disagreement about the blue lunging whip. She's convinced she needs to go fishing with it tomorrow.

I set 2 different alarm clocks. Just in case. And I apply my meditation lessons and calm myself down. It works. Amazingly well.

Tomorrow starts the end of the first step in the journey.

Making it work cross country

So now that it's all working in the jumping arena, lets put it to the test in the cross country paddock.

I ride out into our huge amphitheatre paddock. I am still on top of the main ridge when Princess does one of her silly little rears. I scowl. "Right, no more barley for you" I think to myself, and push her on. She's edgy all the way down the ridge. I could swear that she's better than this in the state forest.

Due to her jumpiness I head straight for the new arena, and work her in there. I do a lot of trotting, getting her flexing forever deeper. She calms down, and we canter. They are quite good canters. Not too long. I would rather have a short, high quality canter, than something that disintegrates into a mad dash.

I am happy with her work, but I forgo the logs for today. It's a bit wussy, I know. Instead we wander down to the dam. A friend left her bag on the bank yesterday and I retreive it. Princess is surprisingly cooperative when I dismount to pick up the bag.

One step forward

I have spent all week sweating over it. The jumping. All week I have sat there pulling apart my position and they way the horse jumps, and then putting it back together again. Of course, I've only done it in my mind. Today we get to practice.

I reset the jumps so that I have a couple of nice cross rails and one vertical, and many related lines in between. The cross rails are so small that I know the horse can just walk over them. In fact I know that the horse could pretty much walk over the vertical too. Then I start putting it all back together.

First, my position must be correct, I must be looking up and sitting up. Second, the horse has to be in control and travelling slowly. Period. That's all there is to it.

I go over the first cross rail, looking up. The penny drops. The rider never gets to see the jump. They have to feel it. There is no other way. The rider gets to see the jump two strides out. From there on they ride. They jump comes. The rider must perfectly stay with the motion of the horse. Then the horse's effort in the jump forces the rider to fold. It's bizzarre, it's amazing, it's like riding blind.

I keep trying this concept over the other jumps, time and time again. I try related lines. Once, just once, Princess goes too fast from one jump to the next. And it all feels like it's falling apart again. I take control, I reprimand, the next related line is much slower.

I took it apart, and put it all back together again, and it worked.