Need to get that competition buzz?
1. Plait up a sibling.
For those of you needing a hardcore hit, get up at 6:00am, drag them to the bathroom and pin them down while you plait them up under a cold shower. Aaahhh winter dressage competitions
2. Set up a dressage arena in the garden and have a parent judge your test
Then look at your sheet and argue with your marks. A 6 for your medium trot?! Are they joking? They wouldn't know a good trot if it smacked them in the face and are probably half blind anyway. You were absolutely robbed. This is a travesty.
BONUS: Choreograph your dressage floor plan and find the music for your Freestyle. Imagine the location of your choice - Olympia, London 2012, Tokyo 20(21), Aachen, wherever. Then you can argue over your artistry marks too!
3. Build a cross country course for the dog
When the dog shows alarming lack of talent for eventing, threaten to sell him as a dressage prospect and do the course yourself (see previous blog post for tips)
4. Get your cat to perform an individual show
No green or cheeky horse will ever present you with such a challenge
5. Practise your Quarter Marks on a rug
Get very upset when someone tries to hoover it
6. Give pets and family members marks on their confirmation and paces
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SHARE THESE MARKS WITH THE FAMILY MEMBERS IN QUESTION TRUST ME JUST DON'T
7. Find hat cam footage of the big events on youtube (Ingrid Klimke has some great ones with SAP)
List all the ways you would have ridden a better round and loudly gasp when they take a long one.
8. Rewatch Badminton 2019 highlights
Try not to get tears in your tub of ice cream. Work out how long the Badminton course would be to run round to work off your tub of ice cream. I definitely haven't just settled in for 6 hours of cross country "live" stream and I'm definitely not feeling a bit teary...
8.5 Try not to get a bit teary when you watch the first horse leave the start box and realise you're not going to get to see that this year. Fail.
9. Try not to spend all day watching competition highlights from 2019 and before when you realise YouTube has an extensive archive.
Fail.
10. Get up at 4am for no reason other than to keep your system on its toes for when the season restarts
Bonus points if you immediately go out into the cold in your pyjamas, completely pack and unpack the car of anything you find in the garage and then proceed to get ratty with your whole family for no reason for the remainder of the day. Blame the competition stress. Use your early alarm as a trump card every time anyone complains about being tired, you were the first competitor on site this morning, did they know?
11. Get fully dressed up in your competition gear, wear it all day
(try not to spill anything on it because you're not going to be able to get near a dry cleaner). It's so expensive you might as well get as much use out of it as possible (also to make sure it still fits with all those isolation snacks...)
Not a fan of this nonsense? Stay tuned next week for our top tips on using this time effectively and make sure that when things get moving you're ready to rock and roll all the way to the top of the leaderboard.
How are you getting your Competition Fix? Let us know and tag us in your photos: @theponypdcast
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