Stage 4 – Depression

We have been through denial, anger, and bargaining this week in our stages of WEG grief and, although we have a tough day today, we can start to see the end of the tunnel–at least the end of the tunnel in terms of our arbitrary and completely ridiculous grieving.  

Perhaps the wisest thing anyone has ever said to me about eventing is: “If you don’t absolutely love horses and the process of producing horses then save yourself a lot of time, money, and heartbreak and find another sport.”  And that’s why I’m a professional bowler. 

The simple fact is that at it’s core, eventing is a heartbreaking sport.  We spend more time and money than any other sport, invest that time and money into animals that we have tenuous control over at best and who are extremely injury prone, and then we build our lives around two (sometimes one) competition each year.  What could go wrong?  The next time someone asks you why eventers are insane, just say: “when was the last time you quit college and spent the next 2 years of your life developing your super young horse only to have it do a suspensory right before [insert famous three-day]?”  

If your goals are to finish a classic three-day, or even to complete a four-star, then you have a decent shot at surviving eventing with some semblance of sanity, but God help you if your goals are to compete at an international championship or–worse yet–win one.  Which brings us to the WEGs…

The USA sent six of our very best riders to Kentucky.  These riders have spent collectively hundreds of thousands of hours training and they were fortunate enough to find six of the best horses in the country to get them on the team.  Before we even look at their results, just think about all of the other riders who tried just as hard for just as long but fell just short, like Amy, Allison, Stephen, and Holly.

You can see that being the best in the world, riding the best horses in the world, and working harder than anyone in the world is on some weekends not good enough to even finish and occasionally not good enough to even start.  As aspiring eventers, we can take comfort in the fact that the cream does eventually rise to the top and four of the US team riders have already won four-stars, but I promise you that one or two perfect weekends over the course of a career is not enough to keep you happy.

I have said many times before that eventing is the best sport in the world.  I absolutely still believe that and I don’t want to take anything away from the achievement of making the US team or even just completing a three-day.  My point is that if all that matters to someone is accomplishing a set of very hard goals, then, no matter who they are, they will usually be a very unhappy eventer.

Happy eventers come in all shapes, sizes, and levels, but they all have one thing in common–they love the process.  They love going to the barn every day and riding their horses whether they are a week away from Fair Hill or ten weeks into rehabbing a tendon. Happy eventers lay in bed and evaluate their day based on whether or not they served their horses, their friends, and their families to the best of their abilities–not on whether or not they won their last competition.

Make no mistake–no one is always a ‘happy eventer.’  We all would rather be jump schooling right before Fair Hill than hand walking.  I also think that setting short, medium, and long term goals is an important part to being successful in any part of life.  But if you find yourself obsessing over goals rather than the process then let the WEGs last weekend serve as an example that focusing on nothing but goals will make you crazy.  Go eventing.