The phone call went something like this…
Me to Trainer: “Heeeey… I did a thing…”
Trainer: “Oh god what did you do?”
Me: “I forgot my saddles.”
Trainer: *busts out laughing* “You’re an idiot!!!” *more hysterical laughter* “YOU FORGOT YOUR SADDLES?? YOU MORON!!!” *even more hysterical laughter* “It’s ok you can use mine.”
Yes I forgot my saddles. No lie. Can’t even make this shit up. I’ve forgotten a lot of things while packing for shows over the past 20 years, but SADDLES? I will probably never live this one down, and honestly I probably don’t deserve to. So dumb. BUT, I will say… forgetting my saddles turned out to be the most serendipitous thing that could have possibly happened, and it totally saved my hide on XC. We’ll get to that tomorrow.
We got to the show early on Saturday with plans to school the bank elements on course. I love this show because they keep their recognized course (which is fairly beefy) but allow schooling the day before. I didn’t want to do much, so we just hopped through both bank complexes and called it a day. Whatever that bank issue was that we had a couple months ago, it’s totally gone now. He didn’t even consider hesitating, not even at the ginormous drop. I think it also helps that he seems to love this venue, he’s always good there (duly noted, we will be back for the recognized show in September).
After I finished getting him bathed and settled in, cleaned my tack, set up my tent, walked stadium, and took a shower, I pretty much just went to bed. At like 8:30. Because I’m old and grumpy. Get off my lawn.
But I was up nice and early with plenty of time to slowly crawl out of my tent, feed Henry, and take him for a long walk/graze while the sun came up. I really love being the first person up and about at shows, there’s something extra peaceful about the calm before the chaos.
When I got on for dressage I wasn’t sure what horse I would have. He was so awful in our dressage lesson last weekend, and hadn’t been much better at home all week. The bit experiment was a massive failure. According to Henry the Myler was a bike chain and the Happy Mouth was plastic-coated murder. He reverted to Henry of 2015 – very stiff and chompy. I put him back in his KK and spent the rest of the week trying to put his brain back in, with varied success. Next time I think of changing ANYTHING with this horse, just tell me not to. He doesn’t do change. He’s the equine version of Rainman.
I didn’t quite have the horse I had a few weeks ago, but it was a massive improvement. For the most part he was staying in the contact and being pretty obedient. I have literally no media from dressage (not even a pic of the test sheet because I forgot to pick it up. God, I swear this is not my first horse show.) but it was about on par with our normal efforts. It was our first time doing test B, which is definitely the harder one at Training for Henry, but I was satisfied with the effort. The figure 8 of 15m circles at X went better than I thought they would and I actually got a genuine trot lengthening at the end. Canter lengthenings on a circle are not our forte, though. In my head it was somewhere around a 35, but we had a super generous judge and she gave us a 29.1. She was equally generous with everyone, so that put us 4th after dressage. I’ll shut up and take it.
Most importantly though – DRESSAGE WAS OVER! Time for the fun parts! And this is about the time Michele showed up…
breedrideevent.com 
That is classic! I’m always terrified I’ll forget a saddle but thankfully I haven’t yet.
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I think I’ll be hearing about it for a long, long, long, long time.
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A long long long long to infinity and beyond time😄😜👍😂
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I haven’t forgotten the saddle yet, but I’ve forgotten all the other things at some point. And damn do I love a good Rainman reference.
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Once you see Henry as Rainman it’s hard to UNSEE Henry as Rainman. It’s pretty spot-on. He’s a genius at XC though.
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Omg. I’ve had billets snap at a show before, but at least I remembered the saddle… LOL. Nothing like a little panic right before a show to get you nice and relaxed before going in the ring. HA!
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Thank goodness we ride in the same dressage saddle and similar jump saddles!!!
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I forgot my girth at a trail head once. I’m not race/stupid enough to go bareback down the trail on spooky pants, so I made the hubby give me his girth and him do bareback. I don’t think he liked me much that day.
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I’ve forgotten a girth before. And tall boots. But never both of my saddles…
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I had one of those instances yesterday! Still kicking myself over my facepalm life. But alas, nothing to do but learn from it and move on
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I dunno, I feel like I learned that if I “forget” my saddles I get to ride in Trainer’s nice Devoucoux XC saddle instead!
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hahahaha truth!
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29.1 is great, even if generous, congrats! Can’t wait to hear about the rest of the show. P.s. I forgot my saddle for a pony club dressage rally in Athens once. My dad has a small plane and literally flew it to me. You NEVER live it down 😂😂
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Once I drove off to a show with horse & trailer, having left my grooming boxes sitting on the side of the drive. I had gotten them from the tack room to right up next to the trailer, but not IN the trailer. [AAAAHHH] [Rule of life: I must never set anything down except in the place where it is supposed to go. Or it will be lost forever in the unknown place where I set it down.]
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That’s exactly what happened with the saddles, I set them down NOT in the truck, soooo they never made it.
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I mean…. You could have forgotten the horse? 😋😂 Haha glad dressage went well, looking forward to reading about the jumping!!
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That’s what I said, at least I remembered the horse.
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If it helps any, my packing list includes “horse”. Because I have done that (although I remembered before getting out of our driveway).
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😂😂😂
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Im always worried i’m gonna forget the girth. girths seem so easy to forget!!!
one time i did forget my pants tho. luckily it was the close venue (15 min away) or holy crap, would that have been awk.
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Maybe you’d have gotten extra marks in dressage if you’d gone pantsless? Depending on the preferences of the judge, I suppose…
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I nearly forgot my saddle once. I had brought my horse up to the show the week before to spend some time with trainer, so i was driving back up in my car and forgot to grab it. I drove about an hour and a half before I realized it. Turned around and went back for it, but if I’d had horses with me, I’m not sure I would have. Glad you were able to work it out though!
Congrats on your circles being round! I can’t wait to read the exciting parts… (sorry, I’m with Henry on dressage.)
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Went for a lesson this weekend. Wasn’t feeling it. Slow to pack – oh wait – hadn’t unpacked from the last lesson two weeks ago. Husband says, it’s ok, I can see your helmet and saddle are in the trailer so what else do you really need. Even my husband who tried to let the dog burn the house down knows YOU NEED A SADDLE. 🙂 He did fail to recognize that when you ride a dinosaur that you have to bring ALL your own stuff because no one else has dinosaur-sized stuff to borrow, but he didn’t forget about the saddle. Glad you had a great weekend.
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Well apparently I really could have used his help when I was packing.
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With apologies to Robert Louis Stephenson, a poem for Amanda, on retiring and rising at horse shows. “On show day, I get up at night, and dress by yellow LED light. On show eve, quite the other way – I choose to go to bed by day!”
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That’s me!!!!
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I almost thought I’d forgotten my boots for my last show. Not quite as bad as a saddle 😉 but certainly not good
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I forgot my bridle up north last weekend so I feel your pain. Lol
Hopefully I can pick it up tomorrow or I’ll still be yahooing around in a borrowed bridle that Aria doesn’t really like until I can!
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