‘Welcome to Eventing’ is the newest of all the 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!
Photo courtesy of High Time Photography
From Cassidy Sitton:
Ryan came to me for training in the middle of May. Before that, he’d lived out his 6 years as a halter and western pleasure horse. His owner had purchased him, not knowing that he was ‘spur-broke’ and brought him to me to see if we could get him to respond to more normal cues. Neither one of us had any expectations of what discipline he’d enjoy doing (he clearly was not happy in the ‘slow/headdown’ job). His owner really just wanted to see him happy. After just 2 rides it was apparent how smart and willing he was to please. I popped him over fences a few times, and we decided to take him to a small dressage show in July, just to see if some of the anxiety he’d had in his past career would resurface. He was a star, and even went out to happily jumped a few of the XC fences and pop through the water. On a whim, we entered him at the Starter Horse Trials at the Carolina Horse Park (just a week later), where he acted like he’d been eventing his whole life. He happily completed all three phases to finish 2nd (!), and if horses could smile, he definitely would have been!!! His owner (who hasn’t ever been involved in eventing), has also caught the bug, and can’t wait to see how far he can go!
