In the office at Future Eventing, with fellow Eventful Life blogger Makayla Wood (event secretary) and Felicity Heggarty (event president)
It’s July which means it’s time to evaluate those New Year Resolutions (who thinks about them at this time of year!). And my new blog resolution this year was to bring you the little things that I am learning each month – and this month has been a big month of learning!
I’ve actually only made it to one event since my last blog, the Dryandra CIC. This is my ‘local’ event (which means its less than 2 hours away), and I put my hand up to help out the committee. The events Co-ordinator Jacqui Early is one of WA’s most amazing volunteers, and a very good delegator making her a joy to work with. I was in charge of helping out with the dressage for this event, and boy can I tell you there is a lot that goes on – and Pythagoras theory will be the death of me!
However once we got dressage arenas set up, most of the hard work was done (for me) with just a little bit of running around between dressage tests on Saturday morning, and I was enjoying helping out the committee. I had 2 horses run in this event, both in the top 3 after dressage.
All I need is a parrot to complete the look
Sunday morning loomed early, and my first ride around XC resulted in me trying to go around a slow rider (who I thought had some trouble on course), and not really paying attention to where I was going – which resulted in jumping into a low hanging branch and catching my face. I managed to finish the course, one hand holding my face and ran to the ambulance where I learnt that I had a scratch to my eye and wasn’t cleared to continue riding. They flushed it and gave me an eye patch to rest the eye, and after a couple of hours I was cleared to finish the day.
My last ride for the day was Tempus Fugit going XC - after how the morning started my plan was to just jump around, enjoy myself and get home safe and in one piece. It worked really well for my psyche, and I had a fabulous run XC, realising after fence 4 there was no need to go slow and coming home with only a few time penalties, we secured the win. There is no other feeling in the world quite like jumping around a tough 3 star track that easily with that much enjoyment.
Tempus Fugit cruising around Dryandra CNC*** (photo credit Reset Equine)
Since then, I have been working hard as the Cross Country coordinator for the Futures Eventing Committee. Futures Eventing is a committee created last year by Felicity Heggarty, made up of young riders, to give back and ensure the future of the sport (hence the name!). My role as the Cross Country Coordinator consists of booking and working with a course designer/builder, helping with flagging and dressing, jump judges, liaising with the TD, organising crash crew and horse ambulance etc.
I also took on the role of Chief Cross Country Judge – a role that I was told is really good for riders who aren’t competing at that event, to be the liaison between riders and jump judges, who may have a query or a complaint. I wasn’t riding so I put my hand up thinking ‘it doesn’t sound that hard, it’s only for 3 grades’. Boy was I wrong! The scorers had lots of questions for me, and 90 percent of them were resolved straight away, but it was amazing how much I was needed. It quickly became an incredibly busy day.
Our event finished without too many dramas (that we let you see!) and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of it. All of those that aided the committee, including our TD Jenny Brett, were extremely forgiving towards us and really encouraged the learning process, which made me feel a great sense of personal achievement – and being the ever perfectionist, to try and do better next time.
My last words to you, I ask, have you ever thought about putting your hand up to help the sport you love? It doesn’t have to be a big role, it could be something as small as making yourself available to confirm dressage judges, to help flag the cross country course or to be someone’s off-sider for the day. I dare every rider out there to put their hand up to help out a committee, just one event a year, and I think we would all learn to be more forgiving once we realise what an incredibly tough job it is to get our sport off the ground.
Til next month…
The Futures Eventing Committee having some fun at the end of the day (photo credit Wayne Edwards)
