A Thermos flask was your favourite present — and other signs you’re a competition junkie
Hurrah! The competition season will soon begin in earnest — and the following may well sound familiar to you…
1. You’ve laminated your competition schedules for this year already.
2. With your anniversary/birthday coming up, your “other half” offers to take you to a swanky restaurant to celebrate. You refuse, as you’ll need to be up at 5am the next morning to plait up. Does he not know you at all?
3. The only time your OH/mum/best mate is likely to see you over the next few months is when they’re calling your dressage test for you, or trying to take a photo of you going over the double, as instructed, so you can dissect the strong and weak points of your jumping position.
4. You keep a spare set of competition clothes in your trailer/lorry at all times. In fact, you’ve spent more weekends sleeping in your lorry than you have at home.
5. You’ve got a bit spotty — not surprising as your entire diet consists of takeaways from the burger vans at shows. More than once, when you’re really starving on your way home, you’ve considered seeing if your lorry will fit through the drive-thru at your local McDonalds.
6. Your favourite Christmas/birthday/anniversary present was the Thermos flask your OH bought you. It might not seem romantic, but roses and chocolates only last a few days, whereas a proper, hot cup of tea/coffee after a brisk cross-country round is the gift that keeps on giving.
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7. All of your work colleagues are secretly checking their Facebook and Tinder accounts — you’re secretly checking Equo for competitions you may have missed near you. And by “near”, you mean within a 100 mile radius.
8. Summer holiday? And miss two vital weeks in the middle of the competition season — you have to be joking! You always go on holiday in winter — it’s cheaper then anyway, so double bonus.
9. Your competition boots cost more than all the rest of the pairs of shoes in your wardrobe put together. In fact, they cost more than the actual wardrobe.
Like this? You might also enjoy reading these:
15 signs you’re totally addicted to horses (and wouldn’t have it any other way)
10 tips to banish competition riding nerves
10. One wall in your bedroom is dedicated to your display of rosettes. Yeah, you’re an adult — so what?
11. You’ve already planned what you’ll say in your autobiography when you’re as famous as Mary King or Carl Hester.
12. You’re completely broke from competition entries and travelling costs, but you’ve never been happier.
Are you a competition junkie? If so, you need to get your hands on today’s SHOW GUIDE issue of Horse & Hound magazine (23 February 2017), complete with over 8,000 event listings so that you can start planning your season now
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Amanda Vlietstra is a freelance writer and editor who’s worked for a number of national magazines and websites. Having thrown herself back rural living with gusto since moving from London to Buckinghamshire in 2012, she juggles her horsey life with work and two small children. She claims to do dressage, but really just potters about having fun on her 14.2hh Belgian Warmblood mare, Roxy. She also enjoys a good gossip over a coffee in the tackroom!