(“Nine arenas for three days”)

It’s fairly common to hear the lament that there are no kids doing dressage, that it’s a middle-aged person’s sport. But at this year’s Regionals the JR/YR section of the training level championships went for 6 1/2 hours. You have to be impressed by that! The entire competition was ginormous. Nine arenas for three days. The day sheets were 61 pages long!

Elsewhere I have expressed my old person’s grumpy intolerance of recent trends in dressage fashion. Ask me what I think of bling! But having viewed what’s being displayed on the racks of ladies’ casual breeches, I’ve hit on a money-making scheme. Let me into a selection of pre Great Depression Midwestern grandparents’ homes with my camera. I’ll snap shots of a dozen obscenely flowered dining room wallpapers, and have the patterns transferred onto breeches, THEY WILL SELL.

All the teasing aside, what’s the matter with vocals in freestyle or “fashion statements” in show ring attire? It’s not just that I don’t like Wayne Newton. But as a judge (and not even too much of a hyper – purist), I want people to remember that it’s supposed to be ALL ABOUT THE HORSE. It’s not “Look at me and my sparkling helmet.” And if some vocal piece is dear to your heart because it evokes a lost love or a moonlight stroll, fine. Listen to it while you’re sipping your white Zin. Don’t let it distract the judge from what your horse is doing.

And another observation — We are spoiled. We’ve seen the videos of the World Champions. We forget how hard what they do really is. At the Regionals the second half of a double pirouette gets too large. A horse is late behind in a change. Tsk tsk. We walk away. Even the best in the world – the ones selected through genetics and sometimes wealth — make their share of mistakes. The ones who are “only human” (or only equine) make a few more. And that doesn’t begin to count all the riders and horses whose dreams far exceed their ability to fulfill them.

Did I mention how hard it is? So if the effort is honest and the horses are always dealt with fairly and with kindness, we should appreciate the result even if it falls short of perfection or even of our vision of art. Because it’s so darn hard.