I was really trying hard not to make a comment on this, but Iāll leave you guys with a (long) excerpt from my ex-trainerās article (and while he by all means is no authority on proper horsemanship by my experience, i felt this was appropriate) that explains this PERFECTLY. Hopefully itāll put things into perspective for everyone, and it says what honestly, I cannot.
āI lost my wife Amanda at an event 10 years ago. Letās use her example as a teaching tool. She made a mistake. I made a mistake, and the sport didnāt make a mistake.
By pushing so hard to achieve goals, weāre pushing right past the point. Do you know why Amanda didnāt make the team? Because she didnāt live long enough. Because she pushed so hard to get there that she died in the process. Itās horrible and itās tragic, but it wasnāt the sportās fault. Nobody made her run that horse. I never told her not to run the horse. We sat at home and tried to figure out how to make the horse go better instead of saying maybe this horse isnāt an advanced horse. Maybe heās good at the intermediate level.
When you are team-bound, when you are goal-driven, you donāt look at life that way until itās too late. Iām trying to tell people, sometimes itās better to go home and come back another day. Sometimes itās better to look at your horse and say, āYou know what buddy, I love you, but maybe the four-star, or the three-star or even the two-star level is above you,ā and not push your horse or yourself past the point you can do.
I donāt understand why people think that they have a god-given right to go around Kentucky as fast as they can or as fast as they want to. Itās your job out there to take care of you and your horse first. If you donāt like a course, donāt run it. If you think questions arenāt fair, donāt run. Most people donāt do that. Some said this year looked like a soft Kentucky, and I said thereās no such thing as a soft four-star. Maybe this one wasnāt as tough as others, but itās tough. Donāt mistake it.
Amanda had five advanced horsesāRegal Style, Chevalier, Broadstone Harvest Moon, Exodus, and Drizzle was on his way. Berlioz [whom she fell with] was just trying to catch up to the others. Maybe itās my fault. Maybe I should have said, āHey Amanda, you know, the horse really doesnāt want to do it.ā
But I was 27 years old; she was 28. You donāt think that way. You think, āI need more horses so I can get on the team.ā And she would have made the teamāChevalier did go to the Olympics when Bobby Costello took over the ride. It wouldnāt even have taken any more time. But she didnāt get to make the decision because she was too ambitious.
Know When To Call It A Day
You have to be aggressive in this sport. It is X-C; there is an X in front of it. It is an X game. This is an adrenaline sport, and you have to be on the edge. It is tough; it is a thrill. You canāt come out and ride it like itās the hunters either, but you have to know by the time you get to the upper levels, that there is a day that you have to pull up.
Itās part of the game to say, āThis is not my dayā and go home. I did it at the Fair Hill CCI*** (Md.)āmy horse had two more stops to go [before being eliminated], and the stops heād had were not horrible, but my horse said, āYou know what, I donāt want to do this.ā And I said, āOK, letās go home before we get hurt.ā And I went home and didnāt get hurt.
When you have consistent things telling you that you are having a bad day, youāve got to make the decision: Do you want to pull up, or do you want to go home in an ambulance? Iāve got to tell you: pull up! Walk your horse home. There is no shame in retiring.āĀ
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