Pacific Dressage - Articles

Not Necessarily "Edith Piaffe"
First Ever Show Experience at Pacific Dressage

by Heather Harris

A trainer/instructor's nightmare clients (cue the violins from the film
"Psycho"): a green young horse, a green not so young rider, the latter in
fact downright of "A Certain Age" as the French more mellifluously intone
with some degree of sang-froid, merci beaucoup. But somehow,
courageous Pacific Dressage's assistant trainer Christine Monfort
survived this horrific challenge without being voted off the island and
encouraged her weakest links, the aforementioned green ones, to
participate in the very first horse show for said writer.

Friends, I was that green show rider. Call me Ishmael. Or my real name,
But not necessarily the next "Edith Piaffe" since I don't have enough
lifetime or moolah left to reach the upper levels. But I could have fun
assessing how far I'd come in my riding (which is from clueless do it
yourselfer, to spinal fracture recoverer from a riding fall to crutches from a
serious car wreck thereafter to beginning dressage student all in the
space of about eighteen months), claimed Ms. Monfort, whom I promptly
recruited to actually show off my horse's true capabilities in other classes
so he wouldn't die of embarrassment with me.

And I had to, since for all my other limitless insecurities, I do have a
beautiful horse who deserves ego-stoking. Indiana Jones RLB is a
registered National Show Horse, a seven year old grey tabiano pinto
gelding. With his odd coloring, "typey" Arabian face and larger
Saddlebred size, he quite embodies what NSH are these days and
attracts favorable comments wherever he goes, although "cute" prevails
since he is such a character.

"Indy" was purchased for trail riding around the Angeles Forest trails
radiating from Lake View Terrace. I enlisted Christine to finish his
training, start mine, and prepare us both for the local trail hazards
familiar to all Lake View Terrace denizens that include steep
foothill/mountain riding, numerous water crossings, mountain lions,
bobcats, rattlesnakes, the homeless, loose horse herds, pitbull packs,
gangbangers, and non-horse-savvy idiots from the surrounding
metropolis on their inevitable mechanized vehicles alone with the usual
fires, floods, and earthquakes of our region. And yes, Christine and I do
trail ride him, although not simultaneously. Dressage training "just
happened".

Surprisingly for a behind-the-scenes preferring, introverted, non-jock,
hyper-self-critical, uncoordinated klutz like myself, nerves weren't the
problem in preparing for our show debut. It was those darn internet
jokes, like "You know your dressage test needs some work when: you
enter the ring at "A" and "B" and "M"; your first twenty meter circles remind
the judge to pick up some eggs on the way home; your second twenty
meter circle involves jumping the surrounding rails twice; the judge asks
you to take the broken letters with you when you exit the ring" etc. etc. I
didn't want to inspire new ones. So a lot of preparation and contingency
planning prevailed, even for Introductory Level, geezer-style.

The standing joke in my lessons is my instructor helplessly burying her
head in her hands muttering "the horror, the horror," while I ask my horse
for a transition, while he mutters the horsey equivalent of "Oh, F#@%k!"
at my efforts. But we all three persevered. Never having shown before, I
needed apropos apparel. AN archaeological dig through my closet
uncovered a hunt cap dating from forty years prior, when I took lessons
for two seconds at Onondarka (initial jumping off point [so to speak] of
Hilda Gurney) which became Foxfield Riding School in the modern era.
Nothing else from my early childhood riding clothes fit me for some odd
reason.

Came the dawn. I snuck in two and a half hours before anyone else
arrived at Hansen Dam to turn my horse, who had been yelling like a
weanling all night away from home and is not exactly unfrisky as it is, out,
figuring that a sweaty horse was better than an out of control one.
Everyone at Pacific Dressage was as helpful as could be, making the
entire experience an easy introduction for both young horse and
superannuated rider.

Did we win after all our efforts? Hey, this isn't a Spielberg or Disney story!
Despite assurances from my trainer that no children are proficient in
Dressage and wouldn't be there to thwart my beginning efforts, one was,
and did. We came in second, which was sufficiently splendid enough for
me to demand a second try at the next and final show. . Where Indiana
Jones RLB and came in second again and third, but with far higher
scores than before, hurray! And where Indiana Jones RLB and Christine
Monfort earned firsts in both their Training Level classes, and High Point
score (68.75) for the entire show! However well deserved, the group hug
for all three of us proved a tad awkward to execute. We just basked in the
glow of well rewarded efforts and ribbons galore....