A few weeks ago, John had the brilliant idea to start a column dedicated to the newcomers in our sport, human or equine. The idea for the series is to share a story of your recent endeavor into the realm of eventing or if you aren’t a newbie, to share a memorable story from when you were. We were all the new kids at one time, so often it seems our lack of experience in the beginning created many of the situations we so fondly look back on now. I could tell you about my first beginner novice when I got eliminated in the start box as my pony wouldn’t leave the start box, or the time that I metered my novice course at the AEC’s (mainly for the reason that I wanted to be seen metering the course) wrong and had a bunch of time as a result, but I’m sure the stories we’ll hear from our readers will be much more eloquent and certainly more comical than my attempts. If you’d like to submit the story your first or your horse’s first event, please send it along with a photo to [email protected]
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Hello my name is Amy Seiler and my 4 yr old, TB, Manchester completed his first Beginner Novice at the IEA Horse Trials. What makes him so special is that he is an adopted horse from the organization Second Stride which helps rehab and retrain off the track Thoroughbreds. My only goal was to complete the event with him and he far exceeded that. He was a little tense in dressage but overall had a decent test. He had no jumping faults in stadium with just 3 time faults and no jumping faults in cross country with 17 time faults. We took it nice and slow as a I wanted to ensure he had a great experience for his first event. He has truly been a special horse that I have worked with for a year doing the training myself with the help of a lesson or two per week from my trainer.
He was kind of the ugly duckling that no one wanted last year and has blossomed into a beautiful swan. I fell in love with him as a volunteer for the non-profit and decided to give him a home myself. I am very excited to be showing him this year as I can finally go out and just have fun with him. He is as brave and honest as they come and I wouldn’t trade him for the world!
