It's All for Show

Why do we show, and what makes horses shows so alluring? The answers vary for different people, depending on their personalities, goals, and experiences. Shows can be something we look forward to throughout the year, something we fear, or something that is just part of the industry.

Photo Credit: Jess Mayfield Photography

With show season well underway, those of us who show are right in the thick of things. Some of my students have already gone to five shows this spring, and it’s barely the end of June. Others haven’t started showing yet this year. Many won’t show at all, whether it’s because their horses aren’t ready yet, or they themselves have zero desire to.

Shows are not the be all end all in the sport. There are countless numbers of happy riders who have never set foot in the show ring and never will. For those who do, shows can amplify the roller coaster of emotions that come along with the journey of horses. If you plan to show, be prepared for the ride!

Showing can bring on intense emotions for a variety of reasons. A huge one for many people is being watched. Dressage is a sport where we pay people to judge us. Despite that, we often forget to take their feedback as constructive when we don’t get the positive comments we were hoping for.

It’s easy to love showing when your horse behaves perfectly, the weather is gorgeous, your fellow competitors are friendly, and the judge’s comments are what you want to hear. But what happens when things don’t all go the way we’d hoped?

Even when the comments seem harsh, we need to remember the judges are here to help us and help the sport. They want the same things we do – for us to have a fabulous ride, our horses to behave, for the tests to look harmonious and achieve the directives of the level. No judge out there is hoping for things to go wrong.

Despite that, we often feel like we are being personally attacked when we read their comments. Why? Because we are our own harshest judge. While some judges may not have the nicest bedside manner, it’s our interpretation of their comments based on our own perception that stings. If we take it as a criticism of our riding, versus their view of the events that just unfolded in front of them, it changes our feelings about their words.

But we aren’t paying them to sugar coat things, we are paying them to give us their honest, real-time feedback throughout the test. If our horse doesn’t execute a movement the way the directives require, it’s not the judge’s job to say, “I can see you meant to make that circle round, so I’m still going to give you a 7.” While we need to reward our horses for the try, it is not the judge’s job to reward us for trying. They’re here to tell us how closely we came to achieving that round circle in that moment in time.

We forget that the judge is only seeing five minutes of our hours spent in the saddle that week. They don’t witness the years of blood, sweat, and tears we’ve poured into becoming better riders. They don’t know what horse you started with, or how far your horse has come.

Judges don’t get to see the great rides we had at home leading up to the show, they see the spook in the corner at the flowers on M. They don’t see the flawless line of tempis we executed in the warmup; they see the horse fall out of canter after the pirouette and miss the flying change. They don’t know how ready we were for the level we entered; they only see what’s right in front of them today.

So why do we have the tendency to take their constructive comments as negative? Because we care, and caring is a great thing – until it becomes self-destructive. One of the greatest arts of learning to become a successful competitor is managing this tendency. We must learn how to take problems in stride and always look for the opportunity in every class or test that doesn’t go the way we’d hoped instead of tearing ourselves down over it.

When we beat ourselves up for not being perfect, and this doesn’t only affect us, it affects our horse. Even if it’s not directed at our horse, they are sensitive and pick up on our emotions. They will feel like a failure if we do. Horses have no clue what the objectives of the dressage test were, all they know is how it felt to you and them at the end. It’s our job to help them find the harmony, the flow, and the feeling of success throughout. We need to make showing fun for them, if we want it to be fun for us.

We need to remember to ride the horse we have in each moment, not the horse we had yesterday. This can be hard to do even at home, but when the pressure of showing is added on top of that it can cause even confident riders to cave emotionally. We are so focused on proving our ability out there and showcasing our horse, that those five minutes can destroy our self-confidence if we let them – and then as a result, destroy our horse’s.

The show is not the time to teach your horse something new, it’s time to remind them of what they know. The warmup ring is not for drilling movements; it’s literally to warm up your horse’s muscles and make sure they’re on your aids.

Why do I show? There are many reasons. First, I love going out and having fun with my horse. It is such a sense of adventure to go places and do things together, and we just have so much fun getting to play with what we’ve learned together.

Second, riding a test in a show ring home gives me invaluable feedback that I don’t get at home. It shows me where the holes are in my training, where I’ve cheated at home by giving myself an extra circle to rebalance or cut a corner (figuratively and literally) in my training.

Third, I love getting the feedback from judges. They see things from a different perspective than I do. Whether or not I agree fully with everything they say doesn’t matter – it’s so helpful to know what someone else sees versus what I see and feel. It helps me adapt my training plan and objectives for furthering my horse’s development.

Fourth, I love the challenge of it. Having goals and showing gives me something to strive for. It helps me go into each ride with a focal point instead of just putzing around. Putzing around can be fun too and an important part of relationship building, but I am a better partner for my horse if I have clear objectives.

Fifth, it is like a holiday, team event, and chance to catch up with old friends and acquaintances. I love getting to hang out with peers and colleagues, and watch other people ride. Horse shows are like a group vacation where we all get to have fun doing what we love.

Finally, as a coach and trainer it helps me to stay current and learn, which in turn helps me to help my students and the horses I ride. While this may not apply in the same way to those who don’t ride professionally, it still helps you to learn and grow as a rider and trainer of your own horse. Any minute we spend around our horses we are teaching them, whether we realize it or not.

I’m sure many of the above reasons apply to you as well. We need to remind ourselves of these things when we are having a rough test, or get what feels like harsh feedback from a judge. We are there to learn and have fun, not just achieve an objective. Everything with horses is a learning experience, and how we view those experiences greatly affects how we feel about them.

Even if you are a highly competitive person and shows are part of goals or a stepping stone to future achievements, keep reminding yourself of why you do this sport. Ultimately it is our love of horses that keeps us in it, or we would go play basketball. My friends used to jokingly say we should have done that instead because it’s so much cheaper – all you need is a ball and some shoes!

But we are in this for different reasons. It’s something non-horse people can’t understand. There is an underlying passion and love that goes far beyond what most sports can offer, that comes from being able to connect with a horse. It makes the sport far more fulfilling for us than any other hobby, but it also makes it far more of an emotional journey.

When we are struggling with feelings of failure, self-doubt, and self-criticism at shows, we must remind ourselves that we are ultimately here because we love horses. We need to take ourselves back to those roots and find the joy in the process versus the end results. When a show doesn’t go well, we have the opportunity to learn from it and figure out why – and then in turn, how we can improve for the next time around.

It doesn’t matter if the judge doesn’t like your horse, doesn’t like your riding, or doesn’t like your twenty-meter circle. What matters is that you love your horse, that you love riding, and that you’re there to learn how to ride a better circle. Keep reminding yourself of that every time you’re feeling frustrated – you are here for you, not for the judge.

So often we focus on the bad scores, the harsher comments, and the problems we have in the ring with our horse. Instead, we should be focused on the hidden benefits: what we learn from it and how that in turn can help us become better.

Chances are there were many good things as well within a test. The judge may say “horse not ready for this level,” but you know it was just that particular ride. I’m not saying we should ignore judge’s comments, but there are definitely times where they don’t have the full story.

I got lectured sternly by a judge at the end of a test with Lacey when she was really green, because I had sat the trot. “Why are you sitting the trot on a Training Level horse?” she asked. “I had to give you 7’s when I was sitting on 8’s!” I was completely thrown off and muttered something about it being easier to keep her together before making my escape from the ring.

I didn’t tell her that someone had gotten bucked off in the warmup ring right in front of us, and the loose horse had proceeded to gallop laps around us then bolted down the aisles between paddocks, getting all of the resident horses running and whinnying. This had not only blown my young horse’s mind, it also cut my warmup down to almost nil because the horse’s rider was awaiting medical attention right in front of the gate and I couldn’t ride nor leave the ring. Lacey was so jazzed up by the time of our test I could barely keep her in the ring, and I had to sit deep to stay within the white rails!

One of my favorite harsh comments from a judge was in a freestyle. I had added an optional movement at Second Level, turn on the haunches, and she wrote “Don’t do movements you’re bad at.” All I could do was laugh! Obviously, I wouldn’t have included it had I not expected it to go well; unfortunately for us we did not execute them well that day.

The judges don’t see these things behind the scenes, so we must be our own best critics. If we felt we put in our best effort and so did our horse, it doesn’t matter if the judge sees a 5 when we felt it was a 7. What matters is that we keep on learning and keep on having fun. We should never let one person’s comments take away our self-confidence when we know in our hearts what we have achieved, and what we have gone through to get here.

Horse shows are many things to many people. It is up to us to choose what they want them to be for ourselves. If we are going into them with the intention of proving our worth, we are liable to be disappointed. But if we go into them to further our progress and have fun with our horse, they can be an incredibly rewarding and fulfilling experience that we will treasure for years to come.