It's Not The Truck and Trailer In The Parking Lot

Several years ago, a friend and I traveled together to horse shows with our little group of miscellaneous pleasure horses.  Compared to now, those seemed like much simpler times, and definitely a time when I seemed to be able to focus on one horse's show career at a time (oh how I long for those days).  We had a few Paint and Appaloosa horses we traveled with at the time (and we were in a transition between deciding whether we wanted to show APHA or ApHC shows... so we just showed the regional Open circuit instead - it was a transitional year).  Our two main horses were a 16-hand, hard-to-keep-sane black and white Paint gelding that I showed, and her breeding stock (almost had enough white on his hock to make regular papers) APHA gelding.

Back in those days, we'd show one show on Saturday, and another show 5 hours away on Sunday, all while working full-time jobs (I worked two jobs, at the time, to support my 'horse habit'), and trying to justify being so tired all the time because of our 'hobby'.  We chased points like there was no tomorrow, and worked diligently on our horses' training year-round.  We traveled in her truck and 3-horse trailer - nothing fancy, but we kept it clean and neat and maintained as best we could.

We always used to drool over the huge truck and trailer rigs that would pull into the various show grounds each weekend - we dreamt of what it would be like to drive a brand new F-350 and a 6-horse rig.  We admired the parking lots full of those rigs, and wished that we, too, could have all of those things.  We also dreamed of having living quarters as well, so that we could stay at the show grounds instead of limping to the nearest $25-a-night hotel just to shower and rest before the next day's events.

The horse I rode that year was extremely unpredictable in the show ring - one class he'd be just fine, and the next he'd leap into the air like a bronc if he happened to be off the rail when the announcer called for the canter (he snapped at the very thought of a horse transitioning to before he was cued to do so).  My travel partner's horse was often lazy and brooding in his classes - a horse you couldn't just smile and ride down the rail, you had to work to make him look pretty (and look good doing it!).  We struggled all year long, but got better with every show, learned how to bypass our horse's shortcomings, and actually accumulated quite a lot of year-end awards that year, as well as enough Jackpot money to pretty much break us even every weekend on gas and expenses.  To us horse show addicts, breaking even is like winning a million dollars.

Above all of the ribbons, jackpot earnings and blood, sweat and tears that went into showing those geldings that year, however, I think we learned a very important lesson that lives within me to this day.  For as much as we talked about the pretty rigs that other horse show enthusiasts somehow managed to obtain, we learned a very important lesson - it's not the truck and trailer sitting in the parking lot that takes home blue ribbons or accumulates points.  In the end, it's the performance you and your horse put on in the ring that counts the most.

There's a funny thing about horse shows (and other animal shows, I guess) - nothing else counts to a judge except what he or she sees in the show ring for that particular class.  There really is (or rather, should be) no difference between you (who may have driven onto the grounds in a rusty, barely-held-together rig), and the girl sitting next to you (who may have driven onto the grounds in a $100,000 truck and trailer).  What the judge sees is your performance, confidence and poise that you possess when you first hit the in-gate.  They aren't judging you by the truck and trailer you drove in with  - they are judging you by what they see now, when it counts.

So many of us get caught up in the politics of the horse show rings - trying to out-do one another with fancy trucks, trailers, stall curtains, and monogrammed halters and blankets.  The truth of the matter is that if you really want to win, and if you really care about the sport you are participating in and the goals you've set for yourself, how you got there is really not that important.  What's there at the time, in the show ring, in that particular class, is (and should be) really all that counts.

I have traveled all over the country showing horses, in fancy rigs and not-so-fancy ones, over the past 20 years.  I have competed with horses literally a fraction of the price of many of my competitors (in fact, one of my most successful show horses was purchased for $500 out of a field back in 1988, with no bloodlines or show background to speak of).  That year I struggled to show the black and white gelding (who, by the way, turned out to be one of my favorite horses to ride and show, because I learned so much from him about patience, thinking ahead, and working with an individual personality to the best of his abilities), I learned that whether you drive onto the grounds in a beat-up rig or something everyone turns and looks at as you pull in, it's what's inside that rig that truly matters.  

That is, after all, what we show for, right?  The horses we're proud of and worked hard on to present in the show rings, not the rigs we drive...

~ Deb