Life of a coach

Early and foggy first morning of the show.

This past weekend the hunt seat team and I headed up to Greenwood,SC for our second show weekend of the season. I often get asked what being a collegiate coach of an equestrian team involves so I figured I would give y'all a little outline of the weekend on the coach's end.

The weekend actually starts on Friday; after getting all of the loose ends (aka loose horses) taken care of at our home barn its time to head up to main campus to pick up the team...and so begins the insane packing of a minivan with 6 college girls. The drive up to Lander University is about 4 hours...buttt you have to add in the time for getting lost looking for the hotel. Gotta love when the hotel changes names and doesn't inform customers! After finally finding the hotel it was time to hit the hay.

Saturday morning started bright and early and with a panic attack. You know the feeling you get when you're packing for a trip, that feeling that there is something you forgot..well that feeling woke me up at 5:00 am. I had forgotten the back numbers for the team (those numbers that go on the backs on the jackets during their riding classes). Thankfully a quick phone call to our regional president put me back at ease and we headed out to the show. Lander's barn was a quick hop, skip and jump from our hotel. The day always starts with registration for the teams, warm up for the horses by the hosting college, a coach's meeting and then the draw where each rider gets assigned a horse by random draw. Then the hurry up and wait begins.

There is a lot of standing, watching and waiting at horse shows.

Towards the middle of the day the nerves kick in as I make sure that all of the girls get ready on time and head towards the mounting area with my first rider of the day. All of the riders get on their randomly selected horses mere minutes before their class and are only allowed to adjust their stirrups before heading into the show ring. 

Shae and Faith at her very first IHSA show.

Once the girls head into the show ring I turn into a cheerleader/smile inducer at the in gate. I'm pretty sure if someone video taped me this weekend they could set it to music and get a ton of hits on youtube. But my crazy "sign language" must be paying off because the girls have been kicking butt!

 

At the end of day 1 the ribbon total came to: one 5th and 6th in advanced walk/trot/canter and one 3rd, one 5th and one 6th in the walk/trot division.

After a fairly short show we headed back to the hotel for power naps and then off to Red Lobster for dinner, clearly we are roughing it on the road :) And a trip wouldn't be complete without a shopping trip!

Day 2 started bright and early again but thankfully without any panic attacks, instead the panic attack was replaced with the chaos of repacking the minivan. The girls came out with a vengeance on Sunday and their hard work and my crazy "sign language" paid off. The walk/trot girls came out with a 4th and a 5th in one class and then our point rider for walk/trot brought home another 3rd place to put 4 points on the board for Wesleyan. Then the advanced walk/trot/canter girls brought home a 6th and a 2nd to put another 5 points on the board. And on another exciting note, my walk/trot/canter rider who placed 2nd is now qualified for Regionals as a result of her ride and is now moved up to the next division!! Now I just have two more seniors to qualify for regionals and one goal of the year will be complete!

Now just because the show is over doesn't mean the coach's job is done, not even close. Another 4 hour drive back to Macon to drop off the girls, then off to the barn to unpack the team chairs and cooler, give hay and water to all of the horses, drop the van off at Enterprise and then finally arrive back at the apartment around 9:40 to crash! Then Monday morning rolls around and lessons, meetings, chores and schooling horses resume as if the show weekend never happened. Needless to say I am pretty excited that fall break is this weekend and I'm jetting off to Boston for a break!!

Hope y'all are having a great week!