Wishful thinking? Skyeler Icke-Voss' students brave the snow for some late night lessons. Photo courtesy of Skyeler.
As we all slowly exit our holiday hangover, most horses and riders are suffering through tolerating the cold winter weather, including ice, snow and bitter winds. Some horses are starting to go back into more structured work, and some have a few more weeks of light exercise left before their season begins. However, did you know that the first competition on the USEA calendar is only a week away? That’s right. One week.
There’s a select group of Eventers who are dedicated enough, crazy enough, and lucky enough to have started their training and preparation earlier than the rest of us, and those people are called “Ocala Bums”. Show Jumpers and Dressage riders go to Wellington, and Eventers go to Ocala, Florida. Some riders skip the whole winter and migrate in the beginning of November, and others wait until the new year has passed before trekking down to the sunshine state. Florida boasts warm weather all winter long, and the very first competitions of the year for the brave of heart (ahem, Buck Davidson has no less than 13 entries in said event).
The second wave of migratory competitors has yet to come, but it’s a much larger contingent of riders, spanning all ages and levels, and involving a lot of Maria’s margaritas and Takosushi. These folks usually head down south in mid-January to mid-February, in order to catch the all-important February festival of competitions. This includes both Pine Top Horse Trials, which features the yearly debut of most east coast upper level combinations.
There's only so much fun to be had in the snow
While not everybody can up and leave to head south for an extended period of time, the USEA calendar seems to encourage it more and more every year. Especially for the upper levels, there are a number of incentives. As the FEI levels begin in March now, with a CIC3* at the Carolina Horse Park starting on March 20th, riders have to be on top of their games for weeks prior to that. The Training Sessions with Coach David O’Connor are during February as well, and you can bet your shorts those riders won’t be showing up without having practiced all their moves.
There is a contingent of horsemen and women who believe that, as a sport, we’ve started pushing our horses too much too early these days. I agree that we need to give our equine partners definitive breaks to ensure longterm physical and mental success, but I believe there is a way to still take advantage of the perks of the southern life without pushing it too far. Namely, that each horse gets a significant and total break following the fall season, and that they compete during the year with intention instead of haphazard point chasing. My horses also get a break during the summer, during which they hack and have a mental recess, but that’s just my personal preference.
While not everybody wants to or can manage to get down to either Ocala or Aiken this year, the competition season is undoubtedly upon us for 2014. This year is bound to be exciting as everybody gets ready for the WEG in Normandy, and tensions will be running high at all the big competitions. The spring season starts in seven days, so get ready!
