“I use the experience to evaluate my progress toward the goals I have set”. If you are dedicated enough to set goals and evaluate them, you probably ride at least 4-5 times a week and over the course of a year that totals at least 200 hours. If you show five times a year, two classes each show, each class approximately seven minutes, that totals a little more than one hour. Are you using one hour, in an unfamiliar setting, being judged by someone that has probably never seen your horse before, to evaluate your progress? These circumstances would provide an accurate assessment of your progress as an exhibitor, but probably not as a rider.
If there are others of you out there, part of the mystified minority, please let me know. My friends just shake their heads at me when I explain my point of view.
For all of the competitors out there, please, help me out. Although you will never get me in the show ring (and several instructors have tried), I really do want to understand. I admire you but I don’t understand why you do what you do.
Whatever your point of view, I hope you are enjoying your choice. And thank you again to all of you who do get up at indecent hours and braid until your fingers bleed, so that the rest of us can enjoy watching you.
