By LORI McMULLEN
There is a cohort of riders at horse shows that you might not have noticed. We can usually be found near the small ring at the back of the show grounds, milling around the in-gate atop our well-broke horses, whom we adore with the fervor of the little pony kids we never were. Most of us are tethered to our saddles via safety vest lanyards. Our boots are impeccably shined. We are excited and nervous, and we strategize with our coaches as if this 2’6 hunter course is the hardest thing we’ve ever done because, in a lot of ways, it is. We are novice adult hunters who came to riding with years of experiences and accomplishments that have nothing to do with horses, and for many of us, horse showing is the first time that ambition and hard work have not necessarily led to triumph.
“I’m the principal of an entire middle school,” one woman told me after she’d struggled to get over the jumps in the show ring. We were standing in the shade of a tree with our horses, waiting for the under saddle to start. “I can keep three hundred and twelve adolescents quiet for an hour-long assembly, but I can’t get over eight jumps the size of a step ladder?”
I understood her frustration. Sometimes I think I might as well roll up my law degree and hold it instead of a crop, maybe drop it in the arena dirt and let my horse trample over it. I am a certifiable type-A over-achiever with a resume full of big things, yet riding, which I took up seriously in mid-life, has turned out to be something that requires more than sheer determination and commitment to do well. Who knew?
At first, this realization came as a shock. Why was my formula, upon which I’d relied for decades, not working now? Effort + Drive + A Little Luck = Reaching Goals on a Predictable Timeline + Feeling Triumphant. I had an abundance of drive and couldn’t control luck, so maybe I just needed to put in more effort. Yes, that was it. I buckled down. I read more books about riding, watched more videos. I spent as much time in the saddle as I could while being fair to my horse and his training program. Though these inputs led to improvements, they were not the magic variables I’d hoped they would be. Riding, it seemed, was still hard.
The more time I’ve spent with novice adult riders, however, the more I’ve come to understand that, for many of us, the elusive nature of triumph on a horse is exactly the point. We want our formulas to be disrupted. We want a puzzle that doesn’t always have a solution. The struggle is its own kind of pleasure, and when we do have those moments of flow – those rounds when the pace is just right and the jumps feel like gifts and our trainers are whooping like we just won a gold medal – we experience a version of success that is fulfilling precisely because it’s been hard-won.
Certainly, riders at every level experience the thrill of their efforts paying off in the show ring, but there is something uniquely satisfying about coming to this sport as an adult, about testing the beliefs we’ve developed around who we are and what we are able to do. I admire the people who have been riding since they were toddlers, whose self-conception has always included “equestrian,” but I admire even more the novice adult riders who’ve challenged themselves to become someone new.
So, maybe, the next time you’re at a horse show and have some down time, stop by the 2’6 adult hunter ring – there’s a lot going on back there that’s worth cheering for.
