A day in the life of a teenage eventer living the dream…
5:30 a.m. – as dreaded every morning the alarm goes off. I crawl out of bed and get dressed for a day full of horses. Well, that’s what I should do, but I usually end up snoozing until 6:10 and then having to rush to get my day started.
6:25 – drag my bike out of the basement and meet the other girls outside to head to the barn.
6:30 – arrive at the barn and push around the food cart to feed the faces staring at you angrily
– sprint to get the best wheelbarrow
– clean all dreaded straw stalls (around 30)
– add more stupid straw to make them even harder to clean
– feed hay, which is pulled of a round bale and pushed to each stall (you become pretty talented at driving hay and straw)
– sweep the aisle with weird stick brooms
7:30 – all barn chores done, we sit down to eat some fresh Brotchen for breakfast (everyone stares at their phone and scarfs down the food)
8:00 – Dirk has written the day’s schedule of who will ride which of the 30-40 horses, who will go on the field and who will go on the walker
– determine which eight horses will go on the field first, put them out
Turning out
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8:30 – pick out the easiest of your horses to ride because you’re so full from breakfast
– get them, tack, ride, untack put away
9:30 – grab the second easiest horse to ride because, let’s be honest, you’re still easier to roll than walk because of all the food
– change of plans—tack and warm up horses for Dirk
10:30 – remember you still have a horse in cross-ties and hope it’s still there!
– ride this horse and one or two more
12:00 – time for lunch—Yay!—oh wait, horses first, right
– get in first set of horses from the field
– put 10 horses on walker
– feed horses lunch
– feed yourself lunch
1:00 p.m. – get horses off of the walker
– put out eight more horses on the field
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1:30 – ride one to three more horses
– tack and untack horses for Dirk
3:00 – clean tack
3:30 – start evening barn chores
– pick through stupid straw stalls once again
4:30 – feed hay to impatient horses
– sweep again
5:00 – feed grain to angry faces
5:30-6:00 – leave the barn and bike home
– shower
6:45 – debate whether or not you’re too tired to cook dinner
7:15 – fall asleep while debating and forget what dinner is
Days here in Germany are going by fast there isn’t a moment where you don’t know what to do. Most of the time we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off but we get everything done so I guess that’s all that matters!
Charlotte Stillfried is a teenaged event rider from the Richmond, Va., area who is spending some time in Germany working for German Olympic rider Dirk Schrade. She’ll be checking in to share her experiences…