SOME THOUGHTS FROM AN ORGANIZER.
...or
what I did at 3:00 am Sunday morning...
...when
I couldn't sleep.
To A Spectator...
...it's the joy and beauty of horses gracefully performing dressage, boldly galloping across the country jumping and handily twisting and turning over the stadium fences.
To A Competitor...
...it's an idea that came in the middle of the night in August and became a reality in October. It's the mailing 400 prize lists to prospective competitors at the local post office and having the mailman wonder about you. It's having the local lumber yard employees all call you by name since they see you so frequently. It's convincing those same lumber yard employees that you really aren't building a gigantic deck with all that treated lumber they keep delivering, but a cross-country course instead.
...it's explaining what a cross-country course is to the fellow who brings all that lumber who wonders aloud what fool would jump such things!
A trial is also putting up the last dressage ring at 3:30am by the headlights of the old Chevy truck and finding the battery dead when you go to move it from it's "square halt" at X.
...it's waking up at 4:00am and wondering if you put the flags on backwards on fence 7.
...it's having your dressage judge cancel out with the flu with T-minus 48 hours and counting before the 1st ride.
...it's finding that other dressage judge..........
...it's a ringing phone at 6:30 am or 11:45 pm......
...it's 56 starters the first year, 75 the second, 86 the third and 122 this year.....
...it's 1,000 hot dogs and rolls in your freezer, 60 lbs. of potatoes to cook and peel, and 450 cupcakes to ice.
...it's having 10 hours worth of work to do with 4 hours of day light left.
...it's wishing for rain all summer to pack down the jumps and cussing it when it finally does rain and washes them all away in 20 minutes!
...it's doing all the work yourself with the only available labor being your two helpful sons ages 1 and 4.
...it's your husband dutifully taking a week's vacation every year to help you out and listen to you moan and groan.
...it's the nightmare of scheduling 122 rides into an 8-hour day and still keeping everyone happy.
...it's having the same reoccurring nightmare that you wake up in a cold sweat to find everyone has arrived at the show on Saturday instead of Sunday and your not ready yet.
...it's having a reliable child care suddenly become only a distant memory.
Having a Trial...
...it's like having a baby--the idea sounds like fun but by the time the day finally arrives you're too exhausted to remember any of it anyway.
...it's crying to your family the night after the show saying you will never under any circumstances do this again...and the very next morning you show them where you want that "neat" x-country jump built for the next years trial.
...it's wondering sometimes whether it's all really worth it, but in the end if you ask me if I'll do it again next year, I'd have to say...