Horse of the Year 2023 Part 5: Supremes Day

 I woke up on the Sunday of HOY feeling like I'd been chewed and spat out by something. Everything utterly ached, but I was also so excited to be able to do working riding in the big arena - the Bob Charter - for the first time.

First, though, Addy needed to be handled in the pre-judging for the gelding supremes, where the champion geldings of each breed compete against one another for the Supreme Championship. I had trouble dragging my sorry bottom out of bed and we were a little late when we got to the stables to find that everyone was still there, still quite happy and demanding their hay. Arwen tried enthusiastically to climb over her stable door, but was placated by the sight of breakfast.

Horses fed, I scrambled into my show clothes and ran to get Addy, who was snowy white and perfectly turned out, as usual, by Erin. We jogged up to the show ring and slipped inside just as the class began.

Pre-judging can be an awful bore or really fun, depending on the horse. It takes forever, and if your horse won't stand still, it becomes utterly hateful. But if you have a perfect gentleman like Addy, you can relax in the lineup and watch all the other beautiful breeds go past. My personal favourites were the little black mini, the gorgeous Appaloosa, the floaty bay Arab, and the drop-dead-stunning German Riding Pony. I stood next to a friendly man with the champion Percheron (and would later discover that his Percherons are working horses who do nearly all of the work on his farm), and we admired the lovely horses together while our own horses behaved perfectly. I also saw Shy Boy, who was champion Friesian, which was nice.

photo by Denford Studios

As Addy and I walked out for our inspection, my number - tied on with a string around my waist - fell off. I arrived at the ring steward in a mess, struggling to tie it with gloves on while juggling my cane and two sets of reins. Addy thought this was delightful and happily started to eat the lovely green grass while I struggled back into my number and stood him up just in time as the judge arrived.

Of course, Addy behaved perfectly, and I had high hopes as I handed him off to Erin and then went to sort out my own. It was no surprise at all when he went through to the top eight geldings in the entire show, no mean feat at all.

Arwen was in fine spirits. She hasn't overnighted at a show for a while, not least because her legs tend to fill overnight if she's stabled. I'd wrapped her legs with IceTite, wet paper and stable bandages the night before, and when I took them off, her legs were as dry and tight and perfect as if she'd slept out, so that was great. The other difficulty with overnighting Arwen, however, is that it allows far too much time for her Dragon Energy to build up, and clearly being sixteen years old and having had a foal did absolutely nothing to impact the amount of Dragon Energy she is capable of producing. She was pawing and head-tossing and snorting while I took Wynnie for a little walk.

Wynnie, by contrast, was perfectly content. She and Midas were probably the most well-behaved horses we had at the show. I took her for a little hand graze and she contentedly nibbled some grass, no pulling, no calling, and no fuss at all. Suffice it to say that she is knocking it out of the park as far as behaviour at shows so far.

The same could not be said for Arwen. By the time we'd had breakfast, washed her tail again and sorted out the others, it was still an hour and a half before our class and Arwen was utterly raring to go. We tried a gentle hack around the property with K on Faith and Erin on Addy, wherein Faith and Addy were quiet and happy, and Arwen was a plunging, snorting dragonstrosity. She threatened to have one of her mini-rears a few times, tossed in a buck or two and generally made me pretty glad of the double bridle several times. I had forgotten, in riding and showing my two perfect little geldings, that Arwen is utterly incorrigible. It's actually one of my favourite things about her, but badly timed that particular morning.

After our hack I gave her some water, put on my show clothes and headed for the warmup a full hour before our class to see if I could put a lid on the dragon. At times like these she is genuinely fresh - there's no spookiness or nervousness, she just has too much energy. So we cantered and we cantered and we cantered and we cantered until I could at least get a quiet halt on a loose rein with no rearing or piaffing. By then she was drenched with sweat but still felt like a firecracker under me, so K gave us a wipe down and some water and we went to stand quietly in the shade for a while. This seemed to do the trick, and she was calm and settled when they called our class and we headed into the big, beautiful Bob Charter.

This was the part where the wheels fell off a little. Not for Arwen - she had used up the worst of her dragonness and doesn't really care about her surroundings anyway. Arwen's mother, however, took one look at the big arena with the big grandstands and felt that supremes day atmosphere and promptly melted into a blob.

The good news is that I was by no means miserable, actively frightened, or even all that anxious. I didn't feel it in my belly or in my breath. (I used to feel it in both places every time I was on a horse, as recently as maybe 18 months ago). My brain just got a little bit scattered, and I consciously felt slightly tense. That's all. We'll say it was about 2 out of 5 on the nervousness scale. For context, I only actually started breathing in the dressage arena about a year ago, and rode every test at a 3 to 4 out of 5. So 2 out of 5 in the Bob Charter was not too bad.

It was enough, though, that we didn't have the test we could have done. I, irrationally, decided that I was not going to be capable of putting the two sets of reins in one hand when we were already cantering, and thus struck off with one hand, leaning forward, and on the wrong lead. Arwen obviously fixed it fast as we approached the spooky bending poles next to the grandstand with one hand. She pricked her ears at the first one but didn't particularly care about them; I was a little tense and tipping forward and not supporting her canter, so she obediently cantered through but disunited around the last two.

Next we had a simple canter around to a dog's leg with a straw bale on its side at the end. We trotted in very neatly and halted by the straw barrel, then had to rein-back all the way out. I was worried she'd step over the poles and overrode the rein-back a bit, then overcorrected in the end so that she knocked the inside of a pole with one foot. We cantered forward and popped over the straw bale, which to my surprise she didn't mind doing at all, although I looked down and unbalanced her so she pulled one hind foot through the bale and knocked it over.

photo by Denford Studios

We cantered smoothly away from that and had to show an extended canter from one barrel to the next, which we actually did quite nicely; I rode the canter boldly, and she gave it to me in fine style.

The final obstacle was the spookiest thing I have ever done on horseback in my life. It was a green mat with an enormous flag on each corner, right next to the restaurant, which many horses spooked at before they even saw the mat and the flags. As we cantered up to it, one of the flags blew right over the entrance to the mat, which was not all that wide to begin with. Arwen didn't give a rat's ass. She brushed the flag aside, cantered onto the mat and halted the instant I asked. Regrettably, between my tension and the general atmosphere, the dragon did decide that this was a really good moment to pull out a sterling piaffe. We piaffed for a few seconds, managed a halt (still on the mat - maybe she does have GP aspirations after all) and then walked quietly off.

I fell on her neck and rubbed and hugged and petted her to death. She was so incredible over a course that caught out a lot of the contenders, and these were all working riding champions in their own right. I don't think there's another horse in the world I would have ridden onto that mat. And while, sure, the test was a bit messy, that was on me. She was obedient all way, except for a bit of DragonPiaffing in the end.

photo by Denford Studios

We went back into the lineup where she stood perfectly as everyone else went. I think, if I'd gotten to go a little later in the class, I would have been more relaxed as well, an interesting thing to remember for future working riding and maneability tests. Anyway, while many of the horses did have to skip an obstacle or two, a lot of the tests were very solid. We knew who the champion was as soon as she finished her test - it was incredible, although I think the lady who tackled it sidesaddle on an OTTB should have been given a medal. (Her horse was foot perfect, I might add).

We cheered on Addy and Erin, who went utterly perfectly, and cheered even harder when the results were called in and Addy and Erin came fourth. They absolutely deserved their placing; the Addycorn was a consummate gentleman, expertly shown by my truly epic best friend. The warmblood won the supremes overall and an elderly, perfectly shown, completely wonderful Welsh pony and his small kid were second.

As we walked out, I was a little bummed that I hadn't ridden the test we could have ridden. There was nothing in there that was too technical or spooky for her - if I'd ridden her like I rode the qualifying class, she would have gone as perfectly in there as she did then. Still, in hindsight, I was less nervous in the Bob Charter than I had been at my last ordinary local dressage test before I left the professional riding world. That says a lot for the progress I've made, and I'm proud of that, even though we still have work to do.

As soon as we were done, we got the horsies ready and hit the road for home, after every single one of them loaded perfectly - including my little Wynnie.

It was the most fun I've ever had at Horse of the Year Show and I'm just so honoured to be surrounded by the people and horses in my life. Riding with friends was a blessing to treasure, and riding my brave dragonmare again is a massive highlight.

God is good.

photo by Denford Studios