March 2nd, 2024
I know it's been well over a year...but I wanted to have a record of my memories as a participant, vendor, and spectator at Equine Affaire Massachusetts back in 2022.
I have been attending Equine Affaire since I was a kid. Growing up as a certified horse girl in New England meant that every Veteran's Day weekend was one of the most important times of the year. I was so lucky to have a mom who would organize annual trips for us to go every year - even pulling us out of school on occasion. When I was much younger, we would go with a group of my barn friends and their moms, and we would organize one night for viewing the Pfizer Fantasia show as a group. I am lucky to have had such a great group of friends and parents at my barn growing up.
As a kid, going to Equine Affaire meant saving my pennies for my Breyer horse pick of the year, participating in the build-your-own stick horse activities, and being giddy about seeing all of the different horses in the breed barn. In high school, it meant buying new clothes for myself, and all sorts of treats for our family pony, Clifden. In college, it meant browsing the vendors for hours, and making endless mental checklists of which items I would have bought if I owned my own horse. It also meant scanning the program to make sure I was on time for any professional clinics I thought would be worth a watch. Once I was leasing a horse, it meant entering every single raffle in the hopes of winning the free fly spray bottle, and maybe purchasing that saddle pad in a shade of green I did not yet have.
In the spring of 2022, my trainer at the time and good friend, Charlotte, suggested I look at which clinicians would be participating at the event in the fall, and that I should consider taking Sophie if there was anyone I would be interested in riding with. I was blown away at the idea that I could be one of the lucky riders to be in the coliseum with one of these top clinicians! I immediately got to filling out application forms. Shout out to Charlotte for being the one to facilitate this!
Several forms, a short essay, and a video montage later, and I was selected to participate in the Gina Miles clinic on the Thursday of that year's event. I was beyond excited. I couldn't wait to experience this iconic event from a completely different view.
Shortly after learning of my acceptance into the clinic, I also agreed to help work a vendor booth for KMA Equestrian with my incredible friend and business owner, Kelly. I called my parents, filled with glee over the fact that I would be gaining two entirely new perspectives of Equine Affaire that year.
When the time came, my dear friend Bella hauled Sophie and I up to Springfield for our Big E debut. Sophie had an uneventful first evening in her stall with her name, my phone number, and 'DO NOT PET' scribbled onto her stall card.
Thursday morning began with an in-hand walk around the stabling area, and a tour of the coliseum. For a horse that pretends to be afraid of a lot of things, she sure took in the coliseum with ease. After braiding her mane and giving her a solid groom, I gave her some alone time in her stall to relax while I spent the early afternoon working the KMA booth.
When it was close to time, my lovely sister, Brenna, joined me at stabling to get the spotted unicorn ready to rock. She came with me and helped me set a warm up jump in the ring near stabling. The funniest part of the warm up area was the variety of clientele: Equine Affaire hosts riders and horse lovers from all sorts of disciplines and backgrounds. While I was working on getting straight lines to my cross rail, there was someone lunging a baby horse, a western rider practicing their lope, a dressage rider doing leg yields, and others doing in-hand work. It was slightly chaotic, but I had to take a moment to appreciate how many different ways people can love and be involved with horses.
Sophie didn't need much of a warm up, and we soon made our way over to the coliseum. We were in a group with three other riders, and Gina took time to talk to each of us before setting the exercise. We ended up working on what I refer to as 'the circle of death' - where you have 4 poles, or jumps, set up perpendicular to each other so that you can form a circle over them. We then had to practice keeping consistent canters to maintain 7, 6, 5 and even 4 strides in between each pole / jump. This exercise is fantastic for horses and riders of all levels, in my opinion. It was challenging to keep a steady enough canter to keep the striding the same between each pole, but it was equally as challenging to adjust the canter to get exactly the number of strides desired between each set. We had started at the trot and counted steps between, and even at the trot this is an exercise that can be useful. Sophie and I learned that we had an easier time off of the left lead than the right, and Gina had me work on holding a haunches in between poles to work on keeping the lead throughout.
I was delighted at the end of our ride. It was so fun to ride with Gina, and I was just beside myself that I was riding this amazing horse at this iconic venue. Sophie could not have been better.
Aftercare and several cookies later, Sophie was set up in her stall to enjoy the remainder of her afternoon in peace. I met up with Brenna and Bella to do some shopping, and then continued helping at the KMA booth. Bella took Sophie and myself home that night, and the spotted unicorn got to have the next day off.
I had to work at my 'real' job on Friday, so I returned Saturday and Sunday to help run the KMA booth. Experiencing Equine Affaire as a vendor was fun, especially because I was promoting products I love. So many amazing people came through the booth, and it was fulfilling to see how much they loved the products upon first try. We ran a little raffle for free items too, which drew a fair number of people our way. It was so exciting to talk to riders from all over and from many different backgrounds. We chatted with the neighboring vendors, and Kelly and I took turns running the booth while the other went shopping.
Even after being at EA for three days, I only purchased a small handful unnecessary items!
I was unable to attend last year due to living in Virginia, but I plan to return this year - at least as a spectator, but maybe more if I'm lucky!
If you are a horse lover in the New England area, I will always recommend Equine Affaire as the thing to do on Veteran's Day Weekend. The eventing season is usually long gone by that time, and it's close enough to the holidays that you can get a ton of great shopping done for yourself and other horse lovers in your life. I look forward to participating in any capacity in 2024!
K
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