I used to dream of galloping 5 different horses around the same Prelim course like the pros do.

In my “when I grow up” wishes, I always imagined myself as a full time horse professional riding multiple horses in competitions.

For some reason I thought that would be fantastically fun.

I’ve been competing 2 horses at a time for a few years now. And I still find two rather stressful.

I’ve even competed 3 horses at one competition (it was a one day, so that meant 9 rides in about 5 hours.)

It was a short and hard fall to earth. (Not literally – for once.)

But I came to realize that there is truly nothing enjoyable about doing 9 competition rides in one day.

Now.

It’s entirely possible that if I had a team of working students and grooms prepping all my horses it might have been a slightly different experience.

But, as the one-woman-show that I am………………………………

…….cleaning up, tacking up, tacking down, cooling off, combined with changing clothes, numbers, jackets, and vests, along with minimal warm ups……………………..

Nope, nothing fun about it. 

I figured out in a pretty big hurry…………………

that I HATE, and I mean TRULY HATE to……………………………..hurry.

There is nothing quite as bad for me as throwing tack on my horse at 100mph, leaping on and racing off to careen over one warm up jump and then race into the ring. (Or have them screaming my name over the loud speakers, and trotting/cantering across the entire show grounds and having to immediately enter the ring with no warm up. Yes, that happened once (well….. actually twice.)

When I whined a little to the powers that be about being stabled 15 minutes from the arenas (that would be a 30 minute round trip btw) with 2 horses to ride 10 minutes apart and having to literally trot/canter one horse back to the stall and leap on the other one who had been saddled and tied for an hour, and trot/canter back with no warm up……..the response………….. “that’s what happens when you enter more than one horse.”

Got it.

On the other extreme is only riding one horse…………………..So far this season I’ve only been competing one. And it’s been a bit of a change for me.

I’ve discovered a couple important things when you only have one horse to ride.

The first is MST.

That is “Mandatory Sit Time.”   (thank you Katie)

This is when you have 4 hours before your ride and you just don’t know what to do with yourself.

I’m not used to HAVING time to do anything.

And it’s just too easy to get tacked up too soon, get on too soon, get warmed up too soon, and then to stand around on your pony who is getting a little tired of all of it waiting for your ride.

So……………..MST is the time you force yourself to………..

SIT

and

WAIT.

What I did at my last show during my Mandatory Sit Time.

This weekend. I have 6 hours between dressage and cross country.

What on earth will I find to do…………………………………………………………