Horse shows are addicting, my friends and I joke. The fun, the adrenaline, the highs and lows, the time spent focusing on your horses and trying to ignore your workday world, all these things come together to make me drive home from each three-day event plotting my next horse trials adventure with the Queen of Cairo.
(And plotting how I’m going to pay for it).
The week of the Young Rider Benefit Horse Trials at Aspen Farms in Washington I was having a crappy week. I was horse-poor with some unexpected bills; I found out I needed to find a new spot to park my Airstream in, (so deep is my commitment to spending all I earn on my horses that I live in a travel trailer to do it. It’s not like I’m ever home anyway); and work was overwhelming me.
By the time I got the barn Thursday morning to load Cairo up, I was wavering somewhere between excitement at heading to the show and crying from my stress.
I thought the theme for my weekend would be “I’m so stressed out.” But instead it became, “ I have really awesome friends.”
I got to the barn and found in my tack trunk a sweet note and gift from my friend Rehbeccah Burkhart who already gave me the best present ever when she bred Cairo and sold her to me three years ago. Then I got an encouraging text from my trainer Meika Decher, who couldn’t be at the show but was cheering her three Polestar riders on from afar.
And of course there was Cairo who was looking at me like I was an idiot, with her wide expressive eyes telegraphing, “Stop sniveling, get your act together and let’s get this show on the road lady. And make sure you pack my snacks.”
Cairo is big on tough love. And food.
Cairo and I galloping on the beach… an excellent way to clear the head.
We hit the road for Cairo and my fourth go at training level, and drove to the show at Lincoln Creek where my friends Reb Schmidt and Alex Gray were waiting for me with sassy mares of their own. I tried not to think about the predicted 90-plus degree temperatures and focused on the fact that Reb was cooking for us, which meant fabulous dinners instead of my usual horse show staple of cheese and jalapeño sandwiches.
The format of Young Rider Benefit is a day of schooling dressage and jump rounds on Friday, then dressage and show jumping Saturday and cross-country on Sunday. That night when we rendezvoused with Reb at the trailers, she magically produced an amazing cold shrimp, rice and Sriracha dish. And then my friends almost made my sniffle again when Alex pulled out a T-shirt that read “Whiskey made me do it,” and Reb gave me some cross-country boots that actually fit Cairo’s little legs. We sprawled by the trailers with our dogs, sipped whiskey gingers and watched shooting stars while our horses munched hay in their stalls. Perfect.
The next morning Cairo jumped first and my mind wasn’t in the game. I hadn’t actually let go of all the crap going on at home and rode a little helplessly. Cairo responded by thwacking three rails. Reb informed me I needed to get back in the ring for another round and asked, “How do you usually keep her straight?”
Straightness, right. Forgot about that.
Cairo and I just last week had a fabulous lesson with our jump trainer Karianne Boyce Lockhart, and apparently I had let everything I learned fly out the windows of my brain. “For God’s sake,” I told myself, “If you are going to be broke and homeless because you are horse-crazy, you at least need to be able to actually ride the horse.”
We re-entered the ring and I kept all my mantras in mind: squeeze-soften my leg, keep her head between her shoulders, keep the horse between you and the ground, and so on. We were still in our soft rubber three-ring Nathe bit, but I had put the rein on the setting with a little more leverage, and Cairo was listening well.
The next round we only tapped one rail. Much better! It was hot and I still had dressage, so I rinsed her off and put her away for an hour.
Cairo has matured a little since last year when we practiced steeplechase the day before dressage at Rebecca Farm and she subsequently went through her dressage test like a guided missile seeking non-existent brush fences to fling herself at in the dressage arena.
So, a year later, having grown up a little, when I pulled her out at in the heat of the afternoon, I foolishly thought she’d be a little tired and gave her a light warm-up.
We hit the dressage arena like we were shot out of a cannon. I bet judges love it when the next horse to enter gleefully bucks before zooming around the outside of low white rails after they ring the bell.
All told, we laid down a reasonable test, and ironically, the judge nailed me for going too slow. Instead of allowing Cairo to come forward powerfully, per my dressage trainer Leslie Chapman’s advice, I had held her back and annoyed her, as I could see in the video Reb took. Not our best test, but I really appreciate when judges tell me something I can address instead of just “tense” and this one’s point about too slow was spot-on.
Alex had the worst of it, riding her mare Scarlett at the very hottest point of the day, but she battled her way through her schooling round without actually succumbing to heat stroke or throwing up, and we sprawled at the trailers again where Reb magically produced a cold taco salad.
The next morning dressage dawned bright and early. I slapped some braids onto Miss Sassypants and we headed to the dressage warm-up, where Cairo played her favorite, “I’m going to drop behind your leg and hope you kick me so I have a reason to buck and bolt” game. Usually I cave, she gets to canter and then we work on developing a reasonable trot.
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Now, for this test, I thought we had a pretty nice go. Cairo listened, actually gave me some stretch in our stretchy circle and had more soft moments than “dressage is the devil’s work” moments. Definitely one of our better rides.
Shockingly (and I wish they would invent a sarcasm font), the judge was less impressed and we were… dead last after dressage.
Sigh.
Is there a year-end award for horse and rider pair who move up the most and most often after dressage? Because I’m pretty sure we have been last or second to last all season after the trotting-and-cantering-in-circles portion of the show.
Reb and Alex assured me they could see the improvement in my wild mare, and when I watched the video I could see that we really are getting better and better, but I was still holding her back too much. Mission for next show: Turn Cairo’s angst into power.
Dressage judges never write, “Your little horse is flinging her tail like a stripper waves her bra,” but I’m pretty sure that minor detail detracts from our attempts at harmony.
As I put Cairo back in her stall for rest and drink, I thanked the horse show gods that the announcer said coats were waived for stadium. I put her studs in and we trotted out for the next phase. I managed to watch a couple prelim rounds before training started and noticed that the in-and-out line from Fence 4 to 5 was giving people a lot of trouble—rails and refusals—and that the outside line I’d walked in six strides was riding in five for some bigger horses. Cairo is a little horse with a big stride.
Reb’s novice dressage was at the same time as my stadium, so it was left to Alex, who is an adult amateur just getting her start in eventing, to watch me school. She hollered encouragement like, “That looked great!” and I reminded myself to keep Cairo’s head between her shoulders—for some reason that expression makes me turn her more off my legs than hands and keeps her straighter.
In we went and to everyone’s surprise we had a very reasonable round. If you looked past the tail flinging into the air and the periodic irritated head tosses Cairo was giving me to let me know she felt we should be going much, much faster, we had power, rhythm and control.
The first three fences, which had some fun rollbacks, we cruised. When we got to the in-and-out at Fence 4, the jump gods were with us, and while Cairo rubbed the in fence, it stayed up. She was so annoyed at touching it—it’s OK if she CHOOSES to smack a fence, but it pisses her off if she feels it’s the fence’s or my fault—that she gave the next couple fences good clearance. The six-strided line we sashayed down in an easy five (I feel like anyone who knows Cairo could have seen that coming), and we cantered through the finish timers double clear.
Whoa.
I don’t know if Cairo and I have gone double clear in stadium since beginner novice. The mare can jump the moon, but she loves to get fast and flat and give a rail or two a good whack.
Reb came back to the barns with a 28.9 in dressage, which if she wasn’t so awesome and such a good cook I’d beat her up and steal her test from her. Alex had a double clear stadium and a dressage test in the 30s and I decided to celebrate my stadium and think happy thoughts that someday Cairo and I will be visited by a glittery dressage fairy who will rain pixie dust on us and make us look like little dressage angels.
Reb’s dinner that night was some kind of amazing zucchini-artichoke heart salad followed by a sunset cross-country course walk under a bright waxing moon. For good luck I wore the bracelet Leslie gave me for my birthday that says “JUMP ALL THE THINGS.” My dressage trainer gets me.
Alex and I are flatland Florida girls originally, and even though we both moved to the Pacific Northwest years ago, hills confuse us. Lincoln Creek features a small, steep-sided hill. Alex’s group had to walk or trot over it. Training had a brightly colored little house, a couple strides to the hill, a log on top, then a couple strides to a steep (to me) slope down.
“Ummm, do you think I trot that?” I asked Reb, fingers poised to distract Meika by texting her at the wedding she was hosting.
Reb looked at me incredulously.
“Camilla, tomorrow is Cairo’s day. It’s cross-country. The day she gets to do her thing,” she said patiently. “How do you think she’s going to react if you try to make her trot?”
Good point. Que sera, sera. It’s Cairo’s day.
I channeled all the good thoughts from last month when Reb and I took our mares to the beach and galloped in the surf and then Cairo and I bravely schooled some prelim fences at Inavale Farm’s cross country course. I might be a little chicken sometimes, but my mare is willing to tackle anything!
The next morning, when the alarm went off at 6 a.m., I was feeling slightly resentful that my ride on “Cairo’s day” had to be at 8:30 in the morning. But Alex showed up with a latte and that went a long way to improving my mood. Did I mention my theme was friends? Friends bring friends coffee on early show mornings.
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I tacked up, and Reb looked askance at my little D-ring rubber bit for Cairo. “Did you remember to switch bits?” she asked. “Yep,” I said, and merrily kept getting ready. I realized later that putting the hot tamale horse in the cute little soft bit might seem insane, but cross-country is where Cairo and I get our groove on, and she’s strangely easy to control.
On our way out to cross-country we wandered out with a lovely lady on her dark bay OTTB, who walked along calmly while Cairo danced and swished her tail. We chatted and I admitted we were the ones in last place after dressage, 20 points behind the leader. We had moved up to third to last after stadium.
When we got to the schooling area, Cairo made her desire to keep moving clear and I started to warm up with Reb watching and Alex stationed on course to video and holler encouragingly. When Cairo sailed over the warm-up oxer, clearing the standards with her usual gusto, the nice OTTB lady smiled and said, “Oh, that’s why you put up with the dressage.”
Why I keep doing dressage with this little firecracker.
Cairo and I cavorted over to the start box where Reb was poised to lead us in if Cairo’s anger at not being able to attack the fences right away were to lead to a tantrum. The tantrum was mild, we entered easily and Cairo bee-lined the first fence, a ramp we shared with prelim.
I let her take the bit a little and gallop as the first three fences were in a wide-open field. We launched Fence 3, a wide table, rather spectacularly, and it was a good reminder I needed control for the wide rollback to the house and hill. As we headed for the hill I thought for half a second, “Hey, Cairo’s never jumped a fence heading right into a slope like that before.”
I think Cairo just rolls her eyes when she feels me think things like that. Over the house, up the hill, over the log and down the hill in two strides. Trot? HA!!! No. JUMP ALL THE THINGS!!!
Turn at the bottom of the hill to two tables in a bending line, a rolltop and then water. I think I looked askance at the dark logs with a gravel landing, but Cairo didn’t mind. Into the water, left turn to a brush fence, then turn back to gallop to a wall.
I’m always nervous before I get on. It subsides when we start jumping. When we are on course, Cairo transfers her bravery and glee to me, and it is just fantastic. Walking the course the night before, I realized I had reached a point where the fences didn’t freak me out. Airy table, up a hill with a pond next to it, half-round downhill to a left turn to a skinny-ish fence? My only worry was that Cairo would see the pond as a water option.
That left turn was another good reminder—Cairo likes to push into my right leg, and we started down the hill a little wide. The USEA omnibus listed this course as a good prep for prelim and I could see why—several of the questions posed, such as the water, this bending line and the coffin at fence 15 were like mini-prelim questions. Luckily as I opened my left rein down the hill, Cairo got her eye on the skinnyish fence and happily zoomed at it.
Four fences from home! Over a little house, another table, and then the coffin before the last fence. Cairo was galloping toward it and I remembered why it’s nice to walk a course with a trainer because too late, despite walking my course three times, I found myself wondering, “Hmm, do I show jump this or just gallop on in???”
I went with the “It’s Cairo’s day,” option. She sailed over it and down the little hill to the ditch with its dark logs, and I remembered to keep my right leg on for the turn and open my left rein. Over the chevron and we cantered over the final flowers to where Reb was waiting at the finish line.
Cairo was barely sweating.
“The course must have been kind of hard,” I told Reb. “I had to ride a couple of the fences.”
As we walked back, Cairo with her jaunty, “I finally got to do the part I like,” swagger, I started to hear announcements about the senior training rider group. Eliminations, refusals—the ditch at the coffin spooked a lot of horses—and thought, “Hey, maybe we will move up.” And then focused on cooling Cairo out and helping get Reb and Alex ready for their rides.
It wasn’t till a couple hours later that I thought to go check my scores. The good thing about being last after dressage is it really takes the pressure off. We finished in fifth! That spot earned us a big pink ribbon and a “wildcard” entry for Area VII championships. Cairo and I are definitely wildcards; I’ll give you that.
Cairo and I with our comeback ribbon.
As excited as I am for Cairo and my best finish ever, driving home, it wasn’t the ribbon I was thinking about. Rehbeccah had texted with ideas about a new spot for my Airstream, Meika and friends from home were cheering Cairo and my great finish, and despite the over 90-degree heat and our sassy mares flipping us attitude (or maybe because of our sassy mares) what I was thinking about was how much I loved my friends and what a phenomenal weekend I’d just had with the ladies. You can’t put a price on that kind of love and support.
That’s the other reason horse shows are addictive: Horses you love and friends who get you and your passion.
Camilla Mortensen is an amateur eventer from Eugene, Ore., who started blogging for the Chronicle when she made the trek to compete in the novice level three-day at Rebecca Farm in Montana. Camilla works as a newspaper reporter by day and fits training and competing Cairo into her days.
