In this series, Cassidy Sitton chronicles her experiences as she and her OTTB, Subway Prophet, prepare for the FENCE SmartPak/USEA Training 3-Day in the beginning of April.
After spending the winter months doing trot sets, playing in the sandbox (dressage arena), and trotting over what seems like a million gymnastics, we now have the first event of the season behind us, and we are careening full speed ahead towards the Training 3-Day at FENCE Horse Trials. The T3D plan for my horse (Subway Prophet, aka P-Diddy) and I actually began last year when I received an entry to the Ocala T3D for Christmas from my parents — but when real life got in the way (found myself unemployed, had a brief scare with what I was for sure going to be a long-rehabbed injury to Diddy, etc…), I put the Ocala goal on the back burner. Diddy and I had a very up-and-down 2009 season, with his poultry lineage and my blond-ness both making inopportune appearances during several events.
It’s amazing how everything can change in a year (or even in a winter).
Diddy puts on his big boy pants, and proved his maturity during cross-country.
Like everyone else on the East Coast, I’ve been dogged by gloomy weather this spring–I thought I’d left all this snow behind me in the Midwest, but I guess I was sadly mistaken. Convinced not to let sleet, nor rain, nor snow (I’ve taken up the persona of a postman) get in my way, Diddy and I have found ourselves doing 6:30am trot sets in 25 degree weather–often enduring 40 mph wind gusts, dodging wet footing and sometime becoming confined to the length of our driveway.
We prevailed over Mother Nature, and last weekend we made our first stop along the way to the T3D–The Ark Horse Trials in Monroe, NC.
I think you really never know what kind of horse you have until you get there and ‘get it done’ — especially for the first event of the season. Having not stepped foot on a cross-country course since November, hearing that 10…9…8…7…. definitely left my head full of what-ifs: “What if I’m not prepared?” “What if Prophet doesn’t want to play eventing anymore?” “What if he’s not fit enough?” “What if I fall in the water?” “What if I forget to turn down the path after fence 12?” “WHAT AM I DOING HERE? AH!” Luckily, my brain doesn’t work fast enough to process each question, and by the time I heard “Have a nice ride!” I was off galloping to Fence 1 with not a worry in the world.
Cassidy felt that Diddy’s dressage performance left the door open for improvement, but were nevertheless thrilled to be seated in second. Apparently, my horse grew up over the winter. All weekend he acted like a mature boy–so much so that I just knew he must not have been feeling well. Dressage could have been better, but considering the frozen footing, I was very happy with our 31.8 and second place standing. He rocked the show jump course–lessons with our local jumper rider have really been paying off and the jumps are seeming very small–what a good thing! Cross-country was quite possibly the best “AH-HA!” moment I’ve ever felt my horse have… EVER. You know that feeling where a horse just ‘gets it’? Well, Prophet got it.
Now we are back to doing trot sets, jump lessons and playing in the sandbox until the next stop at Southern Pines I Horse Trials. Guess we’ll soon find out if Diddy’s new found maturity was just a fluke!
Cassidy Sitton, 25, bases her C-Horse Eventing business out of Raleigh, North Carolina where she enjoys teaching and training, and is also a marketing professional for an equine-related business.
We all do our best to respect ourselves and believe in our abilities, but sometimes it can be a bit harder than we might expect. As a matter of fact, it’s been proven that we respect and believe in others more than we respect and believe in ourselves!
The United States Eventing Associations’ (USEA) Eventing Coaches Program (ECP) is pleased to announce the dates and location of the upcoming 2024 ECP Symposium. The annual ECP Symposium, which is held in the southeast to accommodate the migration of eventers for the winter season, will be hosted at ...
