Competing at Equitana
With Timmy Trumpster the Rescue Pony
Equitana is the the biggest equine extravaganza in the southern hemisphere… and to borrow the words of Anchorman, it’s “kind of a big deal”
When I first had the idea of competing there, I knew I would never cut it with the proper, fancy equestrian disciplines - but they were advertising the inaugural Australia National Liberty Championships and it had a nice, egotistical ring to it.
If you’re wondering what exactly it is – ‘Liberty’ is the art of training a horse to perform with exactly zero straps, ropes, saddles or bridles.
Basically, none of the contraptions we usually use to control a horse 🤷♀️
I was by no means an expert but over the years I’d taught Timmy a swag of tricks and had worked out how to train at him at liberty, using positive reinforcement.
And considering it was the first time Liberty had been included in the program, I assumed that:
a) the barrier to entry would be much lower than the fancy ‘established’ disciplines and
b) the competition would be held in a cute little sand arena tucked out the back somewhere.
At the time, there were 3 weeks left until entries closed… and if we got in, that meant there were 9 weeks for practice.
‘That’s bloody heaps of time’ I thought to myself as I started putting together our audition video.
And just as the deadline loomed I submitted a carefully crafted showreel.
I was hoping it appeared ‘fast paced’ but in reality I had to make it out of a lot of short, pasted together clips in order to demonstrate the rare times we nailed a trick and not the times he stopped to eat or run home.
For clout, I also included his backstory.
I weaved in the tale about how he came from the meat sales, how traumatised he was and then, when he finally learned to trust me - he got to spend two years nearly dying from meningitis.
And it must have been quite Spielberg-esque because a few weeks later we got the green light.
We were going to Equitana, baby!
However, the training process wasn’t great.
Unlike most elite athletes preparing to compete on a pan pacific level, Tim made it clear that he would not tolerate repetitive training sessions under any circumstances.
So I guess that’s a roundabout way of saying I knew we were in trouble from early days.
Because remember, with a live audience you can’t just edit out the bad bits 😳
Also, with no ropes, straps or contraptions - if the horse doesn’t want to participate, well… they just don’t.
So when Timmy got any sniff that things were going to be a bit too repetitive he would just plant his feet and refuse to play…. and more than once he just gave me side-eye and took himself back to the yards 🤦♀️
Anyhoo, in the weeks leading up to Equitana, I swung between hopeful optimism and utter dread. But bit by bit we perfected our routine and things settled into place.
By the time Show Week rolled around, I was quite calm… Or so I thought, until my friend sent me this picture from opening day👇
Game Day Baby!
A few months earlier, my new friend Kathryn had offered to come with me as a our approved event ‘groom’ which sounded incredibly flash and somewhat international.
So it was me, Kathryn and and a ridiculously big trailer for one tiny pony that rolled through the front gates of Melbourne Showgrounds at 6am that morning.
And believe you me, there was absolutely no doubt that we were at a place that was (soz again Anchorman) a REALLY BIG DEAL.
First up was the ‘arena familiarisation’ session where we got 10 minutes to let our horses get used to the famed ‘Grand Pavilion’ and the booming music.
Now when I say ‘booming music’ - I don’t mean just a little bit loud.
It was rock concert loud, where the weird vibrations happen in your bones when you go too close to the speakers.
And herein lay another problem…
I’d trained Timmy using verbal cues and a clicker - and neither were remotely discernible in the earth shaking atmosphere of that arena.
However, always one to pull rabbits out of hats, Timmy really didn’t seem to care about the music and he paid me enough attention that the secondary physical cues seem to work in lieu of words.
The practice session was actually pretty good, which gave me just enough time to think “Hmmm, we might go alright here”
But as the hours ticked down, my nerves increased… and (in what might be a world first) I made a new friend while we bonded over nervous poos 💩
There we were…her dressed like Harry Potter and me like Tina Turner at the port-a-loos.
And our exchange went a little like this.
Harry Potter: “Oh hey! Are you doing a nervous poo?”
Tina Turner: “Ugh, yeah.. like my seventh for the day. I’m glad I didn’t wear a sequinned jumpsuit because I would have soiled myself by now”
Harry Potter: “Ok.. well good luck… and I hope you don’t poo your pants in public”
Tina Turner: “You too.. Good luck. May your bowels stay with you”
And with that, I headed up to the scariest motherfucking place I’ve ever seen 🤣
The crowd was terrifyingly enormous and any semblance of confidence disintegrated immediately when Timmy made it abundantly clear he didn’t want to be there.
See, with most equestrian pursuits, those straps, ropes and contraptions come in pretty handy…because they give you some control over where the horse goes.
But with liberty, if the horse decides to do their own thing, there’s really nothing you can do about it 🤷♀️
You might relate if you’ve ever let a dog off the leash and they decide that they’re not coming back.
And I don’t want to incriminate myself but the dog-refusing-to-come-back thing has happened to me on a few occasions. And each time was made incrementally more embarrassing by every bystander who watched me haplessly huff and puff around the dog park yelling like a madwoman.
But this time, instead of a few people standing around judging me at the park, there were approximately 8,000 strangers sitting in the grandstands ready to watch me huff and puff after a pony.
Of course, the fact the routine was choreographed where certain things were supposed to happen at certain times, in specific places with music changes meant that freestyling was not an option…
My favourite part, the planned outfit change from Princess Elsa to Tina Turner was going to be impossible, unless I just randomly dropped clothes behind me like I was making my way to the shower.
And right there, as I was standing ringside I realised it wasn’t just normal nerves… I felt like the world’s biggest humiliation was about to unfold.
And sure enough that stupid music from Frozen started playing and I wanted to vomit and poo all at the same time as the gates swung open.
And here’s what happened 👇
We got exactly one circle into the routine before Timmy said ‘I think not’ and took himself off to the far end…
At one point, I was running after him and I remember staring at the sand. I was feeling defeated and utterly humiliated but when I looked up, I didnt see anyone smirking - I saw the smiling, enouraging faces of strangers looking back 🥰
And that made me crack a smile…And these strangers smiled back even harder 😄
And then I realised the hilariousness of it all….
Tiny Timmy Trumpster, was being his true, cheeky, stubborn unpredictable self and as I was huffing and puffing up the long side - I decided to turn my normal every day run, into the kind of run I thought Tina Turner might do on stage.
I wouldn’t say it was a particularly good impersonation, but the whole arena errupted into laughter.
It was fucking fabulous 🤣💪
And as for our routine? Well, the only thing that worked well was my transition from Elsa to Tina Turner. The rest was a mess.
We did a whole lotta standing around, he missed the rear, refused to get on his pedestal and only went over the jump because I towed him with my secret neck string 🤣
But even with the public humiliation, it was one of the best experiences of my life. Probably the only thing i would have changed would have been to wear spanx or better tights so I didnt have the ‘fally downy’ pants feeling mid show 😩
One of the Dans from Double Dan Horsemanship was on the judging panel and he said to me afterwards
“With all that running I was a bit worried you were going to lose ‘the ladies’ out the top of your dress”
Which just between you and me, might have made all the difference for a few extra marks 🤔
Anyway, we ended up coming a very admirable 7th place – and considering it’s the first National Liberty Championships ever to be held in Australia – I guess you could say we are the 7th best in the entire country 💅🏆
As for my nervous pooping friend, well Kathryn watched her show and came back to the stables saying
“OMG Harry Potter made me cry… it was just so beautiful” so it was an absolute triumph to see her take first place 💪
That means that our official Liberty Champion of Australia is Ash Barnett - and My God the calibre of horsemanship for the whole competition was high.
Less than a point behind her was young gun (with the most rockstar name of all time) Flinders Greentree who brought his horse in on the back of a ute! 😱🤣
As you do…
All in all, I reckon every competitor deserves some kind of bravery award because it was one helluva terrifying experience.
I know every single one of us spent hours and hours in the paddock, practicing and trying to prepare for what was to come…
And the reality is that no matter how much we practiced, there was no preparing for the enormity of that environment.
I’m proud of Timmy, I’m proud of me and I’m proud of every other person that gave it a shot too.
I’m also extremely grateful to Timmy’s Hu-Man and my other half, Anthony - for not just for enabling these Timmy adventures and keeping Tim alive - but also for spending his weekends pressing ‘pause’ and ‘play’ in the paddock more times than you’d even know….
I’m also grateful to Kathryn my new friend for navigating, sprinkling glitter and even coming down for some rehearsal time the week before…
But mostly I’m grateful to this freckle faced fart box. He’s my teacher, my best friend, my worst nightmare and my greatest inspiration.
I know that sounds cheesy AF.. but if you had seen what this pony has gone through, you’d understand.
Til next time punks..
Thanks for having us Equitana and even though we won’t doing Liberty at this year’s event, we’re cooking up something even better.
Stay tuned, you know where to find us 😎👇
OMG hilarious. I love your writing. Would the audience have known at all what the planned routine was? What if you just acted like chasing after him WAS the routine? This sounds a lot like my household. You are such a funny writer! I love it! I ride as well, and try to do liberty things every time I wrap up a ride. We stink, but I think the true test of loyalty is walking AWAY from the barn (and grain!) at the end of a ride. Have fun!