Welcome to Eventing: Water Woes

This week’s Welcome to Eventing profile is humorously written by one of our reader’s, about her horse’s first event. If you have ever watched (or ridden for that matter) lower level cross country at the events, you’ll know that the water element at Horse Trials is definitely the most exciting place to watch. You’ll see kids trying to get their ponies into the water by using sheer momentum, which occasionally comes to grinding halt with the pony’s feet an inch from the water while the kid ends up more or less in the middle of the water, after being projectile launched from all that momentum they created. Young horses who have only seen water once or twice in their lives usually create somewhat of a show as well. Anyway, be sure to take a minute to enjoy this week’s profile. 

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rear.jpg

The picture was taken by my student. It is of Arlin facing AWAY from the water and trying to rear, since I won’t let him bolt off into the abyss.
 
This was by no means my first event, but it was for my 17.1,10 yr old gelding. I bought Arlin from the awesome advanced rider Melissa Miller. He was bred to be a hunter, but had way too much of an uphill build to be successful there. He had never been to an event when I bought him back in mid – May. I was scheduled to take a student to Indiana Horse Trials (which is the first weekend in June) so I figured I would take Arlin BN, just to see what happened. He was a good boy in dressage and stadium. XC was going to be a circus act, and I knew it. Since we were “newly dating”, I had not found a bit he and I could agree on, so we ran in a snaffle.
 
We came bursting out of the start box at a relaxed walk. I did not want to teach him to get excited in the box, because he is way too big to be acting like a fool. We jumped our log, and he took off at a fast canter. Since we had a decent way to our next jump, I let him go with it, only to be almost dumped sideways by a scary patch of sand. For a second, I had almost forgot I was on a super green horse. Then a second later, I remembered I could easily end up on the ground. So it was back to a trot we went. He was super brave over everything, and then came the water.
 
I was expecting some issues at the water, as he had needed a lead to go in water the ONE time I schooled him before this event. To say we had issues would be putting it lightly. I had planned to “not present” him at the flags, and go around the side. I knew that once he got his feet wet he would be fine, but getting them wet would be an epic battle. We were at least 25 feet away when he spotted the water, and tried to bolt the opposite direction. Arlin performed alot of acrobatics for everyone at the water jump. There was lots of rearing, spinning and running sideways. At one point he was going so far sideways we sent some spectators scattering, as he came a little too close to the roping on the course for their comfort. Finally I got his toes wet, after about 3 minutes of discussion with him. By that time, I had to get out of the way for the next horse on course.
 
We waited for them to pass, and then I approached our log a few strides before the water. He jumped it and entered the water without any questions. After the water, I didn’t really care if he jumped anything else or not. I was just ecstatic he got in the water! We continued on with the rest of our course without any incidents.
 
Due to the amount of time we chewed up at the water, we moved to last place (shocking, I know). But I felt like I had won. The little things I accomplish  bringing a green horse along  is the best feeling in the world.
 
I have some pretty high hopes for this horse, and every time we go through water, we are one step closer to them.
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