For those avid eventers that keep up with the results of the Fork, you have already heard of the monstrosity it was. ( If #forkmud isn’t trending on twitter by now, I don’t know what is) But for those of you who don’t : The Fork is one of the biggest shows of the year in North Carolina, that many eventers compete in during their pilgrimage back up north. Let’s just say this year was less enjoyable than what I’ve heard it was in past years.
To be more exact, It was so dreadful that I’ve dubbed the weekend the Deadly Plagues of the Fork (yes, that was a bible reference in there, three years of Catholic School Education had to teach me something didn’t it?). The Eventing Gods (Dresaryus, Stadius, and Croscountoria) brought theses plagues upon The Fork to convince the rider’s to let the working students go. (But the seemed to not give in like the Egyptian pharaoh did) So here we go, the seven deadly Plagues, Eventer style (and yes, I know there are supposed to be 10)
Plague 1. The water turned to ice: In the early hours of the Thursday dressage, the light rain turned into a steady hail. They froze your hands as you were videotaping dressage rides, and stung your face.
Plague 2. The cold: You would think that with hail came cold, but no, this was an unbearable chilling cold that you couldn’t escape, no matter how many jackets you had on.
Plague 3. The rain: Then began the rain, a downpour soaking your clothes and filling your Dubarrys with water
Plague 4. The mud: Unlike anything I have ever seen was this sticky red mud that stuck to everything imaginable. I’m pretty sure it was alive, because I saw it swallow some golf carts for lunch, and Doug Payne’s Rig for dinner.
Plague 5. Blisters: As the golf carts start being sucked in, you begin to have to walk from place to place. That, coupled with soaked through socks and Dubarry boots means blisters. Horrible blisters on blisters that scar your feet.
Plague 6. The heat: In the last morning, you woke up to this extreme heat (not like enjoyable heat, horrible excruciating heat)
Plague 7. Sunburn: With sun comes sunburn, especially for those of us allergic to sunscreen (yes, yes I am allergic to sunscreen) By the end of the show I had blistering sunburn on the tops of my ears.
And yet, although all these adversities were in the way, eventers all continued to compete all weekend and still competed at the highest of their ability. While the poor working students seemed to be struggling to handle all of the elements. Especially the late night, blistered, mud covered, cold, and soaking wet jogs. (Yeah, we had to do that, four laps around the horse park in the mud builds character)
Even though we had to face all these problems, in the little town of Abermarle we somehow managed to find some normalcy. That would be the difficult search for food. We took Apple bee’s signature quote “See you tomorrow” a little too seriously and came back two days in a row. Don’t be surprised to catch me sacrificing the paschal lamb and putting it’s blood above the door of the Quality Inn, while eating roasted sacrifice at Apple Bee’s.
But all in all it was a good week with lots of amazing rides, and even more amazing jumps!
