"Crewing" a Western horse show

The lady with the nice arena, T, asked me to come help her at a horse show. In an effort to repay her for letting me use her arena last Spring, I had to say yes. I hate crewing (I've only crewed two endurance rides) because I wanna ride, not watch. Selfish, yes.

J said bring a rain coat. I said "No, I just put sunscreen on" and sunglasses, and wore only shorts and a tshirt........and it was the coldest day of the Summer, and I was trapped. I was 15 minutes early and it started raining, and I had no where to go, I just got wet. My backpack contained an ice pack for my snack, and a frozen water bottle. I was still thinking it was Summer. Something leaked so every time I wore my backpack, I iced my back.

As I type this my fingers are tingling, the feeling slowly coming back.

When she finally arrived she needed someone else to help unload her horse who was not me, because she didn't trust me. She's got the horse almost trailer trained, but it takes two people still. Nothing wrong with that, but I felt useless. A foreshadowing of the entire day.

The first thing I said after she tied up her horse was "How can I help you?"

She answered, "You can just keep quiet because I need to concentrate."

Nice way to start the day, huh?

It was harder than I thought, just standing there not helping, and not saying a word. She was in the horse show zone, which I recall well. You are completely stressed and imagining everything that can go wrong.



Waiting for her to arrive, amused by the cars that pull trailers.



These people had the only camping set up, and it looked as if they actually camped!




They had three awings: one for the horse (!) and two between their vehicles. A little grill too, how nice! The US flag on the horse was silly though. People love to dress up Quarter Horses in American stuff.




After she saddled, I saw some clumps of saddle soap that hadn't been rubbed in, so I started rubbing them in with a finger. She saw me doing that and said, "Stop that, you're upsetting my horse!"






Her Arabian, 16 years old, was trembling in the trailer, but holding it together well, surrounded by motionless Quarter Horses. Head up, eyes wide, he was the opposite of relaxed, but experienced enough to not act up.

I told her she had the prettiest horse at the show, oops, that was talking. She said nothing.

She lunged him in a round pen and someone came up and said, "I need to use this round pen, I have a stallion." I thought, oh, do you need special privileges cuz you have a stallion? Eventually I heard screaming and there goes the stallion, to another area. He was easy to keep track of all day.

Then finally T entered the warm up ring, and the warm up arena, and for the next TWO HOURS she warmed up. I could not even imagine a warm up lasting that long. The good thing is, her horse is fit enough to not be exhausted from such a warm up. He just got more and more relaxed and at ease, which is good, but two hours!! I was a popsicle, standing there holding T's things. That was pretty  much all I did for her, follow her from arena to arena, holding her lunge whip, helmet bag, and lunge line. And jacket, a thin rain shell that did not keep me warm at all when I finally put it on.



Almost directly after taking this photo I lost her. She would go from arena to arena and not tell me, and I looked frantically everywhere until finally finding her in a far off arena. I saw a girl who housesat for us once and wanted to say hello, but I dared not walk away in case T needed me.


I did take photos and video for her, I thought she'd appreciate that. She got last place in her first class, and second to last in her second. She actually smiled when she got her ribbons, she was thrilled. I imagine, thrilled to be DONE!

It bothered me when she came to the rail but never came to me, instead, she chatted with other people she knew. I felt worse than useless at that point.

People kept smoking cigarettes IN the arenas. I was freezing cold and being enveloped by smoke. There were ash trays in the indoors, so I guess it's allowed.

There were no men showing, all the men were helping their wives, giving them drinks, helping them get in and out of costume, etc. There were so many grouchy faces I remembered why I didn't like showing. Only one person smiled in the warmup, this teenager who was having a blast on her horse. She made it look fun, while everyone else looked about to explode into rage.

I didn't like the nonstop spurring, how can a horse need to be spurred every stride at a walk? Ugh. But the gentle, rewarding riders were fun to see, in contrast. One lady even PATTED her horse every so often.

One thing I found interesting - the announcer gave the contestants commands in English! "Jog your horses please." But he said, "Stop your horses please" and don't we usually say halt?

Another thing, some riders had obviously home-made outfits and matching saddle blankets - some of them very fancy. T had one of the obviously home-made ones, but you could only tell up close, it looked great, I thought.




Suddenly I saw my friend Christiane and she was shocked to see me and asked me what I was doing. I said, "Helping, but not much I guess." Later she said, "Will I see you again?" I answered, "I don't know" but the show was over, we were done. It was pouring rain sideways, and I gave T her jacket as she left the arena at last. 

At the trailer as she unsaddled I got the horse's cooler ready because he was soaked in sweat and I didn't want him to freeze. I unfolded the cooler and stood 2 meters away from him, holding it. I said, "Would you like me to put this on as soon as you take the saddle off?" And she said, "Put that down, you're scaring him with it!" I couldn't believe it. The horse was just standing there, he hadn't even looked at me.

Then she had me help with the butt bar and she thanked me and drove away. I walked to my car in the pouring rain smiling to myself about what an odd day it was, and how much more awful it was than I could have imagined. I thought it would be bad.....*lol*

A week ago I joked to Bakersfield Dressage Karen, "This won't be fun, Germans have no sense of humor." I actually felt guilty after I typed that. But I don't feel guilty anymore. I thought T was one of the nice ones (kind of crazy, but nice at least). Now I know horse show stress and German brutal bluntness are not a nice combo.

When I took my lunch out of my backpack, it was frozen! And my ice water, it was still ice water.

I can feel my fingers finally.