My husband calls me the limit-pusher because of my constant drive to just add a little extra thing to every little thing. I invite four more people to the dinner party I planned for eight. I open the bottle of champagne as everyone else thinks the night is drawing to a close. I take the kids to 7:30 a.m. Mass so we can make it to the fixture in time for hunting. I book a red-eye back from the West Coast to make it home in time to take one of the girls to a random birthday party of a kid I don’t even know. We add one more activity to an overbooked weekend. I surprise him with house guests. I commit to writing articles about the busiest week of my year, during the busiest week of my year.

In the weeks leading up to the Devon Horse Show, the limit-pusher is at her worst, because she somehow finds a way to noodle every ounce of joy she can in the 14 days the circus comes to her back yard. 

I’ll stop talking about myself in the third person now. Our office doesn’t come online until 8 a.m., so you’ll see me in the grandstands with my kids at 6:30 a.m., and closing out the evening on a date night with my husband that ends at 11:30 p.m. My limit-pushing in terms of competing expands every year. Two years ago I did the dog show, leadline with my youngest, and hunt teams with River Hills Foxhounds (Pennsylvania). Last year we did the dog show, leadline, hunt teams with River Hills and the family class. This year, we’re doing the dog show, leadline (plus bringing a bunch of new leadline side-saddle kids into the fold), hunt teams, the family class, and I’ve decided to enter in the side-saddle division on ladies day. 

“Joy is not meant to be a crumb,” as Mary Oliver states in one of her poems, and it’s with that gem of a quote that I will barrel through this marathon as a working mom with one day of PTO in the hopper to get this parade across the finish line.

“Joy is not meant to be a crumb,” as Mary Oliver states in one of her poems, and it’s with that gem of a quote that I will barrel through this marathon as a working mom with one day of PTO in the hopper to get this parade across the finish line.

Many of you reading this already understand the countless hours of work that lead up to the three to seven minutes you actually spend in the show ring, but I’m sure everyone stuffs this particular sausage in a different kind of way. Here’s how I do it:

12-24 weeks before Devon: I have a vague conversation with the trainers, haulers, braiders, clippers, 
parents, pony and horse owners, hunt team friends and random riders saying that “Devon will be here before we know it,” and abstract plans begin to take form. I tell my husband I probably won’t be doing anything at Devon this year.

Eight weeks before Devon: I take a $500 gamble that my horse will be sound of body and I will be sound of mind after the chaos I’ll be putting myself through in the next few months. Non-refundable entries for the USEF ladies side-saddle division are due March 31. I pony up.

Seven weeks before Devon: I go to the closet and tack room to assess what I have, and what I need. I pay visits to dear friends to collect, and meticulously catalogue, various side-saddle items in every size imaginable. In a chat with friends from separate hunts, Amanda Howe and Sarah Kirk, separated by hundreds of miles but kept together by a shared love of our sport, we form a hunt team and name it “Team Winging It.” The three of us and our horses will practice our craft together for the first time—and only time—during show time in the Dixon Oval under the lights on the Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend. (In our defense, we each independently have spent more time foxhunting in the past season than most teams of three combined, so aside from jumping a final fence in tandem, we’ve been working on our proper hunting pace and distancing all year. We know this game, and our horses do too.)

Six weeks before Devon: I expand past the friends and family network, going to the active sellers and renters market for things unloved by most and obsessed over by a precious few, shipping a 1930s-era Champion & Wilton children’s side-saddle from Sarah McKay at Sweet Rose Sporting Finds & Treasures in Missouri.

Five weeks before Devon: I do a dress rehearsal at the Kimberton Horse Show, held at the Ludwig’s Corner Fairgrounds (Pennsylvania). We know that the actors may change on the big night, but we make sure that kids and ponies are generally outfitted in what they need, and that my horse—scratch that: “that I”—will confidently jump over a fence that doesn’t look like a log or coop we’d encounter in the hunt field. (For reference, if you’re talking to our River Hills huntsman Jimmy Paxson, my horse Harvey is a perfect angel who can do no wrong, and any mistake ever made when I am on his back rests squarely and definitively on my shoulders—and TBH he’s not wrong). 

As I did not grow up showing, and as I have vibrant ADD, every time I show my main concern is that I won’t remember my course. In light of this, I like to enter a hunter derby and handy hunter class at Kimberton, knowing that if I can remember those courses, the typical outside line, diagonal, outside line vibe of the side-saddle over fences class will be easy to remember. At Kimberton, I have a pilot error on one course but am otherwise golden. This is my 9-year-old Daley’s first show since her fall in the Dixon Oval in last year’s Devon family class. I am a nervous wreck and she is completely a smooth operator, and comes in reserve in her big division. For her little sister Birdie, who is competing in leadline, we make sure everything is comfy for horse and rider, and, because of the inherent ring conflicts, we practice just sitting on her pony and waiting for over an hour for her class to start.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll take this momentary departure from our timeline to wax philosophic about how leadline is judged. Depending on where you sit at the Dixon Oval, your preconceived notion of leadline judging at Devon will be some weighted combination of these four things (please let me know if there’s one that I missed):

1) The nicest/most expensive/fanciest pony will win. (I’m guilty of believing and investing in this one, and god bless you sweet Jonathan Martin for connecting us to Memphis, the most angelically beautiful pony I’ve seen in my life, for leadline two years ago and getting us a white ribbon.)

2) The kid with a connection to a large donor, big trainer or organizing committee member at Devon will win. 

3) The child with the best equitation will win

4) Best fitting tack and outfit will win

I would like to introduce idea No. 5, which I love, because money or connections has nothing to do with it: Devon leadline is a test of your child’s perseverance. May the strongest, most well-behaved, disciplined child win. Your 2- to 5-year-old will be forced to sit uncomfortably on a pony, on a hot day, for about an hour, while they watch other children carousing by the carousel and eating messy, delicious things in their line of sight. 

Dear sweet judges, as you watch all 60 of us stroll in, I implore you to keep a keen eye on the sweaty, red-cheeked kid who looks you in the eye as they parade in with a genuine smile on his or her face, in appreciation of the opportunity that has been given to them by their loving parents.

Back to the timeline: After a successful show, Daley, keen to celebrate, heads to the back yard and cracks the (vintage, borrowed, treasured) children’s hunting whip one too many times, completely snapping the lash, resulting in a flurry of calls—apologetic ones to its owner, and logistical ones to get new whip lashes in time for Devon. 

Four weeks before Devon: I’m trying to get to as many shows and indoors as possible, working on consistency with my horse Harvey as we prep for hunt teams and the side-saddle division. Unfortunately I’m also trying to make some things happen at work, so most of this prep ends up happening around 6 a.m. or 7 p.m. in the large field at Jimmy Paxson’s farm. We also practice going from a hand gallop to a halt, which is typically part of the pattern in the hack class. We decide Birdie and Daley should share a pony for leadline and the family class, to save money and logistical brainpower. We try a bunch, and land on one. Daley and I spent a fun day in Delaware at the Winterthur Point-to-Point as part of the River Hills Parade of Foxhounds, which gives us an opportunity to walk, trot and canter aside together in front a big group of people, which I think is good for her (my?) psyche. 

Two weeks before Devon: There is a chaotic two hours at the of Beth Wicas’ Mane Event Stables (Pennsylvania). Three ponies, six kids, two tiny side-saddles, five parents, three pizzas, nine trifold girths, four flat leather hunting breastplates, six balance girths, two 1960s-era pony-sized double bridles … and me. Rough plans are finessed. Moms help moms. Kids help kids. Dads hang out. Ponies are saints. After Daley’s epic tumble during the family class last year, our boisterous crew counts her laps as she trots and canters around the ring, building up that side-saddle core. 

One week before Devon: I manage the seven pony races held during the Radnor Hunt Races (Pennsylvania), where children of Titans of Industry, Olympians, Famous Jockeys, and local dentists (haha, that’s my kids) are pitted against each other down the famed W. Burling Cocks Memorial Racecourse. After all the ponies have crossed the finish line, I rush back to stabling to tack up one of Jump Coop Farm’s mounts for the Katherine W. Illoway Invitational Sidesaddle Race. After that race, I scurry down to a wild tailgate with friends for the remainder of the day. Side-saddle, like most things, is a muscle memory skill where the more hours you spend in the saddle, the nicer your seat becomes, so I think us racing and foxhunting ladies (Julie Nafe, Lauren Apple, Jessica Lampe, and Amy Magee) have a distinct advantage when we show aside. It does get tricky when some of the horses have only seven days to adjust their mindset from the fifth gear they catch at Radnor, back down to the first through third gears they’ll use in the show ring, but we live in a world where a horse’s versatility is not valued like it was when I was young, and I’m proud of these Thoroughbreds for being able to flip a switch between their varied jobs.

The Sunday before Devon is supposed to be a day of rest, recovery and rehydration, but fortune favors the grind, so Daley and I were up at 5:45 a.m. to make it to a local show for her to try out Tootsie Pop, Springhouse Farm’s pony she is borrowing for Devon. After sharing some empanadas with Kate’s husband Bruce (oh wait, sorry, I ate all three), Daley’s division is over by 8:30 a.m., I have the distinct pleasure of leading around Kate’s daughter Cora in leadline, and we make it back to Radnor Hunt Races to help clean up. 

The first week of Devon: With lots of winding text chains, a family class practice is organized where Tootsie Pop meets my horse, and we align the gaits of a 12-hand pony to a 17.3-hand sweet king. New side-saddle habits are sent to the dry cleaners to be ready for Devon after their wild ride at the Radnor Races. Old habits (… die hard) are painstakingly stiff brushed by yours truly until they regain their proper glow. I polish more tack than I realized I even had in my possession.

There is a nod to history as I do this: My sewn-in double bridle was originally owned by side-saddle queen Sue Sisco, and my habit belonged to Mrs. Miles Valentine, a Cheshire Hunt fixture and brilliant side-saddle rider. Based on the silver markings on my Swaine Adeney hunting whip, it was made in England in 1945, the year World War II ended. In side-saddle, very few things are new, so each entry is more than just a lady and her horse, it’s a story often spanning more than a century, with many different ladies and horses woven into it. 

In side-saddle, very few things are new, so each entry is more than just a lady and her horse, it’s a story often spanning more than a century, with many different ladies and horses woven into it. 

The Thursday before Devon is the Dog Show at the Horse Show, which is always a silly evening where everyone parades their dogs around the ring in costume. If you are a first-time leadliner, go to this with your dog and get your kid (and yourself) used to walking around the Dixon Oval. Moms, if you’re thinking “the higher the heel the closer to god” and want to try your luck with an insensible but beautiful shoe, this is the perfect dress rehearsal. Bring four plastic bags (I brought three last year and my dogs pooped four times).

You experience the entire spectrum of drudgery to glamour in the weeks leading up to Devon, and Friday is inevitably the most crap day. Lots of bathing, lots more tack polishing, lots of last-minute drama. At the time of this article going to print, Friday is the future, so I’ll have to report back on this one later, but assume that something, somewhere, breaks in a catastrophic and devastating way. 

Saturday: Show time, literally! Our day will start with Kate Kocher from Springhouse Farm securing the sweetest spot in the lot at an ungodly hour of the morning that I will not be sharing here because I don’t want you baddies showing up 15 minutes earlier and snaking it from her next year. Meanwhile, I’ll be filling five sandwich cases with flasks of tea with honey from my sister’s bees, and folding wax paper around five plain chicken sandwiches with the crusts cut off, cut on a diagonal. I’ll go to the Wayne Farmers Market on our way to Devon to meet up with her there and pick up mini hotdogs, because the athletes (our kids who just sit on a pony for one revolution around the ring) need to protein pack to keep their strength up. Leadline goes at 1 p.m., hunt teams go at 8 p.m., and family class goes at 10:20 p.m. Those are the only givens. You’ll have to check back to hear how the rest of our day shakes out this year (yes, that means there’s one more blog coming). 

Sunday: The day of rest, the day after Hunt Night at Devon, you should go to the pool (the kiddie pool in backyard will work), because you have been riding multiple horses a day all over the tri-state area for months now, through this gauntlet of racing and showing, mostly on a diet of kid’s Z bars and lukewarm water out of a travel coffee mug in your car, and your body feels the worst and looks the best it’s going to all year. It deserves to be flaunted in a weather-appropriate bathing suit, instead of a thick wool habit, and levitated in a zero gravity environment. You should order a spicy marg and just lounge lizard the day away, not thinking about the USEF side-saddle division you’re entered in at Devon, 48 hours from now. These are the things the limit pusher should do, but I think we all know that she’s not going to.

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Sally Smith is the senior director of sales at Joule, a life science consultancy where she leads strategic growth initiatives within the biotech and pharma sector. She lives with her husband, two daughters and two poodles in a dilapidated but charming 1800s restored barn in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. A lifelong equestrian and karaoke enthusiast, Sally foxhunts with the River Hills Foxhounds and is an active member of the sporting and side-saddle community.