‘Welcome to Eventing’ is a regular series here on Eventing Nation, and was the idea of one of our most loyal readers. The objective of the series is to chronicle the stories of either your first event, or the first event your horse competed at. We all know that Eventing is a game of experience, which usually translates into some comical recounting of those days before we had any idea what we were getting into by starting to event. If you’d like to submit the story of your first event, please send it along with a picture to [email protected]. We are running low on profiles, so please send yours in!
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Photo rights: D & G Photography
I bought Let Me Be the One (Fonzie) in January 2011 as a training project. I had broken out one other horse, a 14.2 hh arab, the year before and decided this time that I needed the next one to be one I wanted to keep around for a while as a replacement for my 22 year old partner, Sherlock, when it was time for him to retire.
When I picked Fonzie up, he had one ride under saddle. Through diligent work on my part and an amazing mind and willingness to learn, my 16.3 hh 4 year old baby competed at his very first recognized show at Beginner Novice at Fox River Valley Pony Club HT at the end of June. Dressage went well, we had one refusal cross country, but we were eliminate in show jumping. Fortunately, I learned a lot from that show— like when you are show jumping and run out at element B, you have to circle and take element A again…which came in handy at Otter Creek in September when we refused element B of a two stride again. So far, we have competed in 4 events with finishes in 2 of them.
