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

 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 

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…