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Questions, questions, questions! (mostly about Devon Horse Show!)

2K views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  jfisher256 
#1 ·
Okay so first I just want to start off by saying sorry for leaving and not coming back for like, ever! But I'm back now and I have a question I've been dying to ask, and I'm not sure what to do :-|

So basically, I had a long talk with my trainer around October/November this past year about if I could possibly get into the Devon Horse Show. Not only is it one of my main goals (besides college, obviously!), but the training will really help me prepare for college. I've been riding since I was nine and lately the pictures I've seen of me riding just look embarassingly like I've only been riding for a few months, which is not good. I have a riding evaluation over the summer for my college to see where I stand with lessons and I think the training needed to compete at shows such as Devon will really help prepare me. Even if I decide not to go to Devon, or it's too late by now, it'll still help me for the fall when I start classes/lessons. I don't want to look foolish :-p Unfortunately being out with a back injury in the beginning of 2010 did not help much.

That being said, is it too late to be able to train? I did research and talked to my trainer, who said that the hunt team she takes to DHS every year (which I wish I knew a few years ago!) do some shows in the winter, weather permitting, but really start getting into showing around the beginning of April and go to DHS for the days that they do hunters and hunt teams. I would have to be prepared to do 1/2 to 45 minutes of flat work to be able to do a solid 3'-3'6" hunter course and should be ready to ride and train at least 5 days a week.

I know there's another barn in the area my mom said she'd be willing to talk to. Although she didn't like the owner much, the owner taught me after my first instructor had to leave for school and she offered me a spot on the show team the very first time she saw me ride. I left after a few months because at the time it was a hassle getting there and was getting a bit expensive. They show at DHS too. Unfortunately being on their show team was costly too so I understood at the time, but was bummed I couldn't accept it.

There's always the possibility that I could just take private lessons somewhere. There's so many barns in my area so it's nice to have a wide range of options of where to go and such. I started thinking..maybe I could just get the private lessons and wait until after college to start showing and training that heavily. The college I'm going to, you only ride 2 times a week and are allowed free-ride and trail riding time with permission. So it's not super vigorous.

I'm trying to make a decision within the next week or so. My mom and I had a huge talk about this back in February. My parents and my grandmother both know Devon is a big dream of mine. This is going to sound kind of corny, but my grandmother loves taking my mom and I to Devon every year to see the hunters and jumpers and I really want to ride in it and she would be in Heaven if she saw me ride in it. I stopped showing probably when I was 13? I don't think she's ever really seen me ride in a show before. She's seen me ride when I was in a "half-ownership" type of deal, but that was pretty much it.

I know that Devon is not going anywhere and neither are the trainers I have contact with, but this would be huge to be in it before college :)

One last thing..I was also looking into Dressage lessons just to get a good seat and the basics of it down for possibly a few months and over the summer. So if the whole showing scenario doesn't work out, my mom said I could contact the woman who owns the Dressage barn about 40 minutes away from me. I wouldn't show, just take lessons, as I am not good at memorizing things like Dressage tests. We did a mock dressage show at my old barn during summer camp and I chickened out because I couldn't remember the test :-p Remembering courses I feel is much easier for me.

Sooo..thoughts? I don't mean to ramble and I apologize if that was way too much to explain what I'm trying to ask & get across! (doesn't help that I have two outlines to write for a government project due tomorrow and I still haven't started them, heehe!)

Thanks! Opinions much appreciated!
 
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#2 ·
If you are unhappy with your self evaluation then perhaps another trainer is in order. If you decided to take dressage, which is an excellent idea, you don't do the entire pattern at home but work on improving phases. It is no different than remembering a hunt course, one movement follows another, as in one jump follows another. You were trying to remember the whole course.
 
#3 ·
If you are unhappy with your self evaluation then perhaps another trainer is in order. If you decided to take dressage, which is an excellent idea, you don't do the entire pattern at home but work on improving phases.
While I would like to go somewhere else, more advanced, that would be great. The one thing I'm worried about (and shouldn't be) is my old instructor finding out and being hurt about it. Although, two other riders I grew up riding with left because they wanted to go a more advanced barn that went to shows every weekend. She practically molded me into the rider I am today. If it wasn't for her then I probably wouldn't be the rider I am today. But the lessons she teaches and shows she goes to (besides Devon) are pretty much at the lower level and I originally left her place a few years ago to get more advanced experience. That's when the place I got offered the lease and show spot from came in. My mom actually said she'd be willing to call them again.

It is no different than remembering a hunt course, one movement follows another, as in one jump follows another. You were trying to remember the whole course.
Yeah that makes sense now that I think about it. The only hunter courses I've ever memorized had the course spread out on paper with X's as the jumps. The only dressage test I would have had to memorize was just a piece of paper with typed out instructions on where to perform certain movements and such. So I guess it's not necessarily the fact that just like a hunter or jumper course, one jump comes after the other, just like moves in a dressage test, but probably that I do better with a visual memory than just reading something on paper. Maybe that's how dressage tests are in shows and big competitions. I don't know, I've never seen a legitimate dressage test before and I think that's probably why I've always been kind of afraid to do dressage :lol:
 
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