Without volunteers I would be sunk. Photo by Holly Covey.
Help, help. I’m crippled and I can’t unload my jump trailer on Saturday night at Fair Hill. Will you help? It’s only for an hour or so.
Yes. Yes. Ting. Ting. Ting. My phone chimes with notice that helpers are coming. Friends answer the call, while I am on the Crutches Struggle Bus with a bad knee that went rogue and had to be operated on just 10 days before the second of three combined tests I was managing at Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area in Elkton, MD.
Katie McIntyre on her green OTTB, Indian Fighter, winning Intro Dressage. Photo by Steven King.
The joy of those tings coming from my half-dead phone made my heart sing — that friends would help, yes, they are coming, they will unload the whole trailer and the dressage arena, duck for cover while a thunderstorm waters the ring, then carry on setting up everything and putting everything in the secretary shack for the following day of competition. We have to haul everything in for one day — all jumps, the dressage ring, prizes, banners, everything — and it all has to be loaded and taken back home at the end of the day.
Artist Becky Raubacher of Animals To Wear contributed this incredible panel to our jump collection — one of a kind. Photo by Holly.
When I set up these combined tests, I thought I could handle it pretty much myself, because I usually think that way about just about everything I do in the event world. How wrong I was! When you send in your reservation it is official — you’re going to hold a show — but until it gets REAL, about four days before, you really don’t know if you can do it all yourself. And the answer is of course, you can’t.
Without the largesse and kindness of a few friends, some of whom don’t even event at all, most of the rest of us would not enjoy this sport even a tiny bit. The amount of detail and paperwork in even an unrecognized combined test with less than 100 entries is staggering for one person already working a full time job. Emails, scheduling, times for jumping classes, copies of ALL the different tests being ridden, judges, stewards, scribes, clear round tickets … the list goes on and on. Our shows actually have some sponsorship and we have stuff to give away and packets with brochures, and I like to make sure all the riders who compete enjoy the day.
I do the courses (from the 18-inch to the CIC** course — yes, one course made to fit all in one day), I build the jumps, I order the ribbons, I clerk, organize, beg, set up, measure, hand out and pay. It’s crazy and yet people have fun and horses grow — you see them so unsure over the first jump, then the rider sits up and kicks a little, and the second and third jumps are better and by number 8 or 9 they are confidently hopping around and the big smile means something got accomplished.
We don’t do it for money, we do it for love. And how much can you thank the people who save your sorry butt when you are hopping about on one leg? As much as you can!
(The combined tests are Friends Combined Tests at Fair Hill NRMA Foxcatcher Ring, Elkton, MD. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/friendsct.)
