Warm Up Gone Wild

Photo by Holly Covey. Photo by Holly Covey.

What’s the greatest way in eventing to make everyone hate you? Yell “GET AWAY FROM THAT JUMP” in warm-up when an amateur rider and her husband reach to change the height of the oxer.

Are you depressed and would like to descend into the depths of hell? Try going to a horse trial and warming up for a Novice division. It’s one of the more terrifying tasks on horseback you will ever face because of “those trainers.”

The ones that hog the jumps. The ones that yell at others. The ones that teach an entire lesson in the warm-up ring to just one student 20 minutes before their stadium round and succeed in disrupting the warm-up of other competitors in addition to making their poor spouses or friends who happen to be there to help literally cry from frustration.

Eventers used to tell one another about the hole in front of jump seven or warn each other of the slick corner in stadium. Now they warn others that “Terry Trainer is here today!” meaning gird your loins for the fight to get your three jumps in warm-up.

These trainers have many tactics, but a couple of them are: jumping in front of the oxer as you head down towards it, or managing to put their hand on a rail or pull the pin on the jump cup just as you are three strides away. Darn! Didn’t get that jump in. Oh well.

Canter around again, and see if I can slide in behind the student she’s teaching … nope, that didn’t work either, she ran in front of the jump again! Canter around again. Pick the vertical this time. Nope, she’s going to run over and put that jump down, so now it’s lower than what your horse needs. Please! Leave it alone! Let someone else jump!

Now we all pay the same entry fee, and everyone has an equal right to the jumps. Except them. They are more than equal. They get the whole jump for the whole time they need it. And you don’t. You just keep circling. Your horse puts his ears back and says, “Huh?”

And don’t try to complain to anyone. They’ve got that base covered, too. They’ve entered 16 of their students in the horse trial just so they would have a clear upper hand when an official is contacted for a complaint. They have previously intimidated the poor volunteer warm-up coordinator so well that she is huddling in the corner in a puddle of tears and texting her BFF: “I’ll never volunteer here again!”

Some riders just have had enough. They canter around, call out the jump and keep coming regardless of where the trainer is parked. Look out! Everyone is covering their eyes and secretly pulling out their phones to video what is sure to be the wreck of the century … but by sheer luck, they miss each other by inches.

Hey, it may be the most exciting place on the grounds. I’m definitely going to make sure I take my camera to the warm-up area the next event I attend. I’ll compare to my husband’s video at the demolition derby and we’ll see whose is more spectacular.

And meanwhile, the only advice I can give is maybe pretend you’re deaf when the jump-hogging trainer yells at you. The video of the wreck might get a lot of hits on social media.