Well I have had my first taste of affiliated SJ. And I am left feeling a funny mix of emotions: angry, anxious, mainly just a bit letdown. It's kind of like that thing where you want to be a member of a club for so long then when you finally get there you decide you don't really like it after all!
The main problem was that it was dangerous. And needlessly so. The warm up rings were a complete free for all. On the first day I saw 3 serious accidents in the warm up arena. 2 broken legs, 1 broken arm. And risks like that seem unacceptable to me.
The 2nd issue was the appalling behaviour of many of the horses - which of course is what made it so dangerous. Horses were bucking, rearing, bronccing, running backwards, spooking sideways. Then going in and jumping clear. It seems that as long as the horse does the job in the ring no-one really cares if it is a lunatic in the warm up arena. People were totally relaxed about it. I would be mortified if my horse behaved like that and went cannoning into people! One of the broken legs was a boy on the ground putting up jumps for a rider who was run over by a horse. But there seemed almost a machismo about riding barely controllable horses. I was literally the ONLY person wearing a body protector too.
Then there was no management of the arenas. There was no limit to how many could be in there. There were 2 competition rings: 1 starting at 80 and the other at 1.05cm and there were 2 warm up arenas - one for each ring in theory. But people just warmed up in either arena so the warm up fences in BOTH arenas were well over a metre when half the people were trying to warm up for an 80cm class. People came out after competing and then used the warm up area for a schooling session. Others were using it despite not even being entered into the competition just to give the horses exposure. So it was extremely crowded and people cut each other up all the time.
I warmed up in the lorry park initially as it was a safer place to be!!
On a more positive note, Amber was fantastic. She had horses flying past her both sides in canter, one fly bucked and missed us by inches. And through it all she kept her head and although she was stressed and tense she did nothing wrong. I was so proud of her. She jumped the 80cm clear round clear then had 8 faults in the open 80 on day 1, 4 faults on day 2 in the clear round and then eliminated in the open 80 for 2 stops. Though the final stop was the last fence. She was tired, stressed and had started napping by then so it was a shame to have ended our show on that note but hey ho. I don't blame her. By then I wanted to go home too! Overall she did very well in very difficult circumstances.
I've been told it's often like that and I'll get used to it! But I disagree. I will ALWAYS hate that kind of edge of control riding. Apparently some venues have BS stewards and do control numbers and behaviour better so I will be highly selective in future about where I go. Or maybe I'll just stick to eventing!!
The main problem was that it was dangerous. And needlessly so. The warm up rings were a complete free for all. On the first day I saw 3 serious accidents in the warm up arena. 2 broken legs, 1 broken arm. And risks like that seem unacceptable to me.
The 2nd issue was the appalling behaviour of many of the horses - which of course is what made it so dangerous. Horses were bucking, rearing, bronccing, running backwards, spooking sideways. Then going in and jumping clear. It seems that as long as the horse does the job in the ring no-one really cares if it is a lunatic in the warm up arena. People were totally relaxed about it. I would be mortified if my horse behaved like that and went cannoning into people! One of the broken legs was a boy on the ground putting up jumps for a rider who was run over by a horse. But there seemed almost a machismo about riding barely controllable horses. I was literally the ONLY person wearing a body protector too.
Then there was no management of the arenas. There was no limit to how many could be in there. There were 2 competition rings: 1 starting at 80 and the other at 1.05cm and there were 2 warm up arenas - one for each ring in theory. But people just warmed up in either arena so the warm up fences in BOTH arenas were well over a metre when half the people were trying to warm up for an 80cm class. People came out after competing and then used the warm up area for a schooling session. Others were using it despite not even being entered into the competition just to give the horses exposure. So it was extremely crowded and people cut each other up all the time.
I warmed up in the lorry park initially as it was a safer place to be!!
On a more positive note, Amber was fantastic. She had horses flying past her both sides in canter, one fly bucked and missed us by inches. And through it all she kept her head and although she was stressed and tense she did nothing wrong. I was so proud of her. She jumped the 80cm clear round clear then had 8 faults in the open 80 on day 1, 4 faults on day 2 in the clear round and then eliminated in the open 80 for 2 stops. Though the final stop was the last fence. She was tired, stressed and had started napping by then so it was a shame to have ended our show on that note but hey ho. I don't blame her. By then I wanted to go home too! Overall she did very well in very difficult circumstances.
I've been told it's often like that and I'll get used to it! But I disagree. I will ALWAYS hate that kind of edge of control riding. Apparently some venues have BS stewards and do control numbers and behaviour better so I will be highly selective in future about where I go. Or maybe I'll just stick to eventing!!
