Water

As an ex-racehorse and ex-event horse turned dressage horse (recently retired), I have an interesting history with water. I have been bathed in it, I have galloped through it, jumped over it, jumped into it, and on the race track and in the dressage ring, sloshed through it.

As a racehorse, you have to act silly when you get a bath, that is part of what is expected of you. You have to shake your head and kick out a little when it tickles your back legs. It shows spirit.

It is also required that you spook at puddles and dance around them. When one gets to the race track itself all that foolishness is put aside. On the track you have to run straight through the mud and water. This skill came in handy later when I became a dressage horse.

Once I moved on to being an event horse, water took on a whole new meaning. At first, I was like, “Excuse me? You want me to go into the big puddle? With my entire body?” After some dancing around I gave in and you know what? It wasn’t all that bad. Before I knew it, I was galloping through like a pro.

Jumping into the water was the next big test. The first few times, I jumped really high off the bank and made a huge splash. That was kinda fun, but I about left my rider behind, so that approach wasn’t too highly thought of. After some practice I learned to control my leaps and jump only high enough to clear the obstacle.

Jumping a jump in the water was tricky. It was hard to tell where the bottom of the jump was and you couldn’t get as much momentum in the water as you could on dry land. I figured I would give myself some extra room, so I jumped from waaaay back. In hindsight, that probably wasn’t the best idea either. I eventually figured it all out. Soon enough, running and jumping in the water was just part of the fun.

As an event horse you get bathed all the time and sometime at the end of a cross-county track my rider and her friends would gang up on me and drench me with really cold water. The expectation was that I would stand still for all of this, and for the most part I did. It was hard after I ran cross-country because I was pretty excited at that point. I tried my best to at least not knock anyone down.

As a dressage horse I no longer had to run and jump through the big puddles, but sometimes the dressage ring had water obstacles in it, which was strange. It usually happened when it was raining, so maybe that is part of the game? I don’t know, but I was always willing to slosh on through. It got me a lot of extra praise and cookies even if it did make me really muddy.

Now that I am retired, I get the occasional bath, with nice warm water, but that is about it. It can be boring sometimes, but I like it just fine.