An Interview with Shay

I met Shay at Thanksgiving. Hubs and I had just returned from walking the dogs on the beach and were waiting for a table at the Half Moon Bay Brewery with the dogs (Papoose was with my parents in Seattle). Shay noticed my socks (K Bells, with blue ribbons on them) peeking out of my Uggs and asked me if I ride. We started talking and I discovered Shay is an amazing person.
She's tall, pretty and really nice. She has an open and generous spirit. She also won a golf cart riding. In the same division as me, the Stirrup Cup. So I finally figured out Blogger enough to publish an interview with her. She had great pictures, but Blogger won't let me pull them up.

What made you start riding?
I was at a dog park with my two German Shepherds.I met this gal, G, wearing a sling.
I asked her what happened to her arm she asked me if I knew anything about English riding. She said, “Well, I fell jumping over this 6 foot oxer!” The effect was lost on me- I didn’t know what an oxer was.
She confessed she was really only jumping 2’ and at the time of the accident, she was at a dead stop.
G asked me if the belt I was wearing was crocodile. so I told her its story: we were in Florida when a crocodile crossed us. We had no choice but to wrangle it, eventually the game wardens put it down and so since we had the leather I thought I might as well put it to good use.
G: “Really?”
Me: “No!”
We laughed, laughed, and thus started our friendship.
She asked if I wanted to ride. I thought about it, and answered with a definitive yes.
A week later we were at the local Saddlery where I purchased $900 dollars worth of gear (I still have the receipt). My first lesson Aug. 23, 2007.

I have a ton of pictures of me during my progress as a rider and they are funny to look at. At the beginning, particularly when you could really tell that I didn’t know what I was doing; I used to hold the reigns, high, almost as if they were stinky dirty diapers.

Exactly two years later, I happen to win two-year end divisions, 3 reserves with different associations, a golf cart for overall highpoint, two champion jackets,
an embroidered champion scrim sheet, a hunt coat, Champion engrave leather halter, Ariat duffle bag, Ariat quilted vest, 41 blue ribbons, 11 show champions, 2 silver champion buckles, several horse engraved glass pitchers, pilsner glasses, a Swarovski horseshoe necklace, stuff animal horses, horse tin, Swarovksi adorned & silver engraved spurs, show socks, saddle pads, house welcome mat, embroidered boot back, a medal and the three awards banquets are still to come. At some point, I gave my ribbons to teammates; everyone in my barn got a prize(s)…All this in only 8 months of showing.
I am telling you this not because I wish to come across as cocky but because I am proud to have achieved physical prowess when two years prior I could barely walk. I had severe Rheumatoid Arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease where your own body attacks itself as it is confused and cannot distinguish healthy tissue from invading bacteria. So when I met G in the park and she said do you want to ride, I thought, you got your body back, use it to the FULLEST, you don’t know for how long and I didn’t want to have regrets in life or a bucket list of unfulfilled “could have beens”.

How did you win the golf cart?
At my local riding club, there are many different rated shows there but regardless of the rating, when hosted by Camelot Riding Club, points earned accrue. The Amateur rider with the highest points gets a golf cart and the Junior Rider with the highest amount of Camelot points gets a golf cart.
At the very last Camelot show at the Expo Center in Industry Hills, the person in second place for the golf cart brought two horses. She was able to increase the number of classes she was in from 28 to 44!
I am in the low amateur division which means I cannot jump higher than 2’3” . I simply could not be in as many classes. I am also not skilled enough to jump higher so I was at a disadvantage with the number of classes that I could enter. That girl, who jumps 3’ even dummied down to my very class and jumped 2’3” in my class. I was devastated that this loop completely could exist and it looked like she was going to win the golf cart.
G let me rider her horse in a few of the classes so that I could increase that number of classes that I could ride in for 18 classes to her 44. I even did cross rail jumpers, which I’d never done. I was competing against ponies who can take inside turns that I cannot on a horse that is 17 hands. It wasn’t easy, I was especially tired, my groom was sick of moving my saddle from horse to horse, and I had to switch the number on my back as well... It was frantic. We all thought that the golf cart was out of reach. We broke out a bottle of wine to help ease the madness that was going on into the evening- I was still showing at 6:30pm, in the dark, shadows making the horses frisky.
Apparently, I got a seven stride in five- but it was cross rails mind you and my friend’s horse is a 3’9” jumper so he did not have any problems. In fact, it took me ¾ the length of the ring to get him to finally slow after we crossed the final timer. I remember coming out of the ring -my trainer just looked at me like “That was atrocious, but it’s jumpers and you are never doing that again so I’m not going to say a thing.”
I knew it was awful, but I had no energy left. I just held on and spurred.
Out of the three jumper classes with the two horses I Disqualified my first attempt by not going through the timer, then I got 1, 1, 2, 3, 3.
As it turned out, those points clinched the golf cart for me.

How has riding affected other parts of your life?
It has helped me avoid the mid life question of “what the hell am I doing with my life” because I feel I did something awe inspiring and whenever I feel questionable, I think of this past year to raise me up. I’m really, still in disbelief to have accomplished this much in such a short period of time. Two years ago I had not even seen an English saddle up close. So the amount of pride that I feel has swelled into the self esteem part of my life. Whether I continue to ride our not I will always look back on this and say, “I did it.” It also makes me feel that the barriers and obstacles in life look less ominous, I’ve gained new mental strength and belief in myself not to give up and that new heights can be reached if you just believe you can EVEN if you start the proverbial rat race late. I think often we are fearful to start something new in life, career, hobby etc because we are afraid of not doing well and starting a race late certainly makes us feel like its hard to catch up and the odds are against us from being competitive.

I have to say that I was extremely fortuitous that several people took an interest in helping me improve.