Committed or Crazy? The Eventer’s Paradox

Cross country at Plantation CIC3*. Photo by Jenni Autry. Cross country at Plantation CIC3*. Photo by Jenni Autry.

Yesterday, while out hacking my horse Nyls, I had a brief moment where my life flashed before my eyes. Despite his twelve years of age, and obvious dedication as an upper level event horse, Nyls will forever hold a certain naughty streak, as all his friends well know. Here’s the scene: we are cantering with some energy up a hill that is known as a gallop hill, and has a set finish point (the top). As I reach the last ten strides of the hill, I change my weight and ask for him to slow, assuming that he would comply in his normal manner.

Instead, Nyls chose to grab the bit and accelerate. The path veers sharply downhill to the left, or sharply uphill into a rocky wooded path to the right, and we are currently headed at about Preliminary speed directly into….nothing. As I pulled with all my weight, I could feel him briefly consider dashing onto one path or another. In a flash of an instant, I felt him commit to his final decision: to gallop onwards, leap over a giant pile of brush and fallen trees and gallop headlong into the forest, dodging trees along the way.

When I managed to pull him up, his adrenaline was running high. He was both proud, frightened, and enthralled at our apparent survival through his impromptu cross country adventure. Note: when your horse does something insanely stupid like this, obviously he escapes without a scratch, but real injuries happen when they slip in the paddock on a warm summer’s day. As I walked home, I considered him carefully, and with some amazement. What was happening in his brain when he made that final call to charge into the woods? In what world did that seem like a good decision? We all know he’s a true weirdo, but is he actually a lunatic?

I think that the final answer lies in the nature of the upper level horse. The horses that you see competing at Advanced and higher tend to walk a fine line between crazy and just incredibly committed and determined. After all, what horse looks at an enormous angled ditch and brush and says, ‘Yeah, that seems cool, I’ll just hurl my body over that, no problem’. To survive enormous cross country courses, there are always a few moments when your horse has to just take a leap of faith, commit to a distance or a line, and leave the ground, believing in their rider and their own ability to make it work. This is where the infamous “fifth leg” that is so prized in our sport comes into play. The horse just works it out and commits to accomplishing the goal despite the occasional unconventional method.

Leaping into the water at Morven Park. Photo by Christine Lafreniere.

Leaping into the water at Morven Park. Photo by Christine Lafreniere.

In fact, our top level horses aren’t the only ones who can easily be misconstrued as crazy. Yes, there is an enormous stereotype for “crazy horse people”, but, let’s be real here, it’s more than a little true. To be successful at the top levels in equestrian sport you have to embrace all of the following and more: major physical injuries, daily general discomfort, 12-14 hours minimum of hard labor every day (days off what?), emotional highs and lows that would put any romance novel to shame, crushing disappointment, an inability to ever truly summit your particular mountain and the fortitude to continue smiling through it all. Sounds great right? To top it all off, we all genuinely love it. Sounds crazy to me, and I’m living the life.

However, I prefer to think that we are just a special breed of incredibly committed individuals. We are hard to discourage, determined, diligent, the hardest workers you can find and we’ve had to find ways to have faith in ourselves and our abilities even when we get beaten by inches weekend after weekend. We train our horses to think in the same ways, and the special ones learn to love it, and to dig just as deep inside themselves for the clear cross country round as we do. Sure, if you stand next to a jump on the Rolex course, you’ll think we’re crazy, and you might be right. However, just think how much physical and mental strength it takes to believe in that crazy fantasy enough to make it a reality, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

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