Hi,my name is Corey Finlay and I am the Judson College Equestrian blogger. Although I was born in and spent the first ten years of my life in Ontario,Canada, I now call Oxford, Alabama my home. Atleast when I am not here at Judson. I can't believe that this is my third year at Jusdon College where I am a business major and an Equine Science and Web Design Minor. I love this school and can't see my self any where else.
If you want to know more about me check out my facebook!
I have always loved big cities, the feeling of becoming invisible in the crowd, following the flow of people. I don't think I would ever like to live in a big city, at least not for any great length of time, but I do enjoy visiting. It had been awhile since I got my last “big city” fix but that was taken care of last week...
For Spring Break this year, I joined nine other members of the Judson College Art Club for a road trip to Chicago. The ten of us, our Art professor Mr. Adams, and his wife all loaded up in one of the schools twelve passenger vans and headed for the Windy City. It was a tight, twelve hour drive ( fourteen including, stops for food and such.) with twelve people plus luggage in that van. I am convinced that twelve passenger vans just aren’t meant for twelve fullsized
humans and their stuff. Regardless of the lack of leg room, we made it to Chicago Monday night with everyone and everything we left Judson with that morning. Upon arrival at our hotel, we quickly unloaded, settled into our rooms ( they weren't much less crowded then the van - we had five people per room) and hit the streets to start our week's adventure with some dinner.
And an adventure it was.
We decided to make the most of our few days in Chicago and so we started with eating Indian food. A few members of the group, including the Adams', had eaten Indian before and had their favorite dishes, but most of us had no idea what was on the menu. Alabama doesn't have Indian cuisine on every corner. It was kind of late when we made it to the restaurant and they were about to close, so our dining decisions had to be made quickly. Despite the necessity of a quick dish selection, I rather enjoyed my meal - a little spicier then I am used to, but good.
Tuesday the fun was just beginning. We started our morning by walking the two or
so miles from our hotel to the Museum of Contemporary Art. We took our time getting there, taking in the scenery and doing a good job playing the role of tourists, taking pictures of the buildings and sites. One of my favorite parts was the river. The City of Chicago dyes the river green every year for St. Patrick's Day. Green is my favorite color, so this obviously impressed me. Once at the museum, I learned that contemporary art, or at least the art in the Museum of ContemporaryArt, did not impress me so much. It was still an interesting experience; I am just glad that it was a somewhat small museum.
Our next stop was lunch. We had met up with one of Mr. Adam's friends, who currently lives in Chicago, before we left the museum and he and his roommate took us to a nice Irish pub where we enjoyed some delicious Chicago-style deep dish pizza. The restaurant was located back close to our hotel, so instead of walking that far again we took our first ride of the trip on the subway. Some of the girls had never been on the subway before and were rather surprised when the train lurched forward, causing them to almost lose their balance.
We spent our afternoon at Navy Pier, one of Chicago's must sees. The pier includes a giant Ferris wheel from which passengers can view the city scape with a bird's eye view. We of course had to take a ride. The pier also has a few other attractions that are seasonal, and were therefore not open, shopping, and a stained glass museum. We left the pier in time for part of our group to make it to the theater to see the Blue Man Group and the rest of us headed to the hotel for a rest before dinner.
Once we had had our power break, a group of us took to wondering the streets in search of some picture perfect night skylines. It was a nice time to get to see the city in a different light. These nightly walks became almost routine and we most often found ourselves at a Walgreens at some point during the walk. There seemed to be one every few blocks and by this time at night, everything else was surprisingly closed. It was generally around nine o'clock and we expected the big city to be open late. I guess we were relying too much on the Hollywood portrayal of large city life. The Walgreens was nice though and often had souvenirs, t-shirts and such so that we were able to get some of our shopping done.
* ok, this blog is a little long, I know, but I don't want you to miss the experience. Check back in a few days for the second part of the trip.*
Ahh, the regular show season for the Judson Equestrians is over. After a good season of hard work it is time for a break, but not quite. We had one of our riders qualify and place in the Regional show which means she will get to move on toSemis. So the work isn't over yet, because we have to get her ready to win.
Jordyn Blackwell a 3rd year at Judson college pointed out of class 14 during the show season this year. That qualified her for Regionals during which she won FIRST place. Since the top two riders from each regional class move on to Semis, Jordyn will be representing Judson College at this years Semis in Texas. This was Jordyn's second year on Judson's Equestrian Team, but she does have prior showing experience. After pointing out of class 14, Jordyn concluded the regular season competing in class 16 reining and class 15 open horsemanship. These are the two highest classes in western IHSA, and she has done very well placing within the top of her classes several times.
The final Regular season show was saturday of this past weekend at Berry College. It was a very good show for our team, we didn't all necessarily place as well as we may have liked, but we all had very good rides. For many of us, it was our best show of the season. We worked hard to get ready, or should I say, played hard to get ready, and we remembered how to relax and have fun.
My ride during Saturdays show
Regionals was on Sunday at Berry and though we only had one rider showing we were there as a team getting her ready and cheering her on and, as I mentioned earlier, she did not disappoint.
When most people think of showing and competing the last thing that comes to mind is being part of a team. But I am proud to say that I am a member of a close team that is there for each other, encouraging each other and helping each other achieve their goals. We get each other on the horse, cheer from the rail, and when things don't go as hoped for, we are right there to pick each other up and get ready for the next show. I can't talk for any other school, but I know that showing at Judson is definately a team sport and, when you join the Equestrian Team, you have a team that has you back.
this past weekend and everything went really well. The horses all did great and I think the riders had a good time. For the Judson Team, it was nice to have a show at home where we knew the horses and didn't have to travel. I must also add how nice it was to have our new barn located right beside our arena. It made things so much more convenient.
Saturday was also Scholarship Day at Judson, so we even got to have a number of prospective students come up to the arena for a little while. I think it is really neat that they had the opportunity to see what our program has to offer, as well as, what IHSA has to offer.
As good of a time as we all had this weekend, we are also glad that it is over. Getting ready for a horse show is one of the most stressful things to do. There is just so much that has to be done; horses have to be worked, judge packages put together, horses assigned to each class, programs printed, information packets for each team, and so so much more, half of which I probably don't even know about. It is not all about getting ready for all of the people who are coming, though, it is also about making sure that we as riders are ready to compete. Sometimes we get so caught up in getting ready and trying to ride our best so that we can get enough points, that we are too tense to really DO our best.
I realized this week in class that sometimes I am so worried about winning, or at least placing high, that riding becomes a chore, something that is stressful and that I even at times, almost dread. That isn't what riding is suppose to be about...
Yeah, I want to do well in shows, but I show because I love horses and I love to ride. If I forget that, what is the point?
We did an exercise in class Tuesday that was meant to not only improve our riding, but to remind us why it is that we ride in the first place - because we love it and it is FUN. You know what, I remembered... I remembered what it was like to ride because I love it and because it is fun, and because horses are one of Gods most amazing creations.
I am sure that at this point most of you are probably wondering what this amazing exercise was. Well, it is nothing special really... We simply ran polls using cones since we don't actually have polls. It helped us with controlling our horses. We worked on flying lead changes and it was a time where we could just ride and ride fast. :) It was also a great opportunity for us to grow as a team and just encourage each other to get one more lead change than last time or to run it just a little bit faster. When it didn't go as well as we had hoped or we messed up, we could laugh at our mistake and try again, harder.
This is a lesson that I am going to try my hardest to remember, both when I show or when I am just having a hard day in class. I ride because I love to, because it is fun and something I enjoy. As long as I have a good time and try my hardest it doesn't matter if I win or not because if all I am concerned about is winning, there is no point.
So, I mentioned a couple of blogs ago that Judson College's Western Equestrian Team was going to get to go to Auburn to train with Auburn University's Equestrian Team and coaches... We FINALLY got to go.
Alright, so the trip was only delayed one week. We were supposed to go last Tuesday, February 1st, but due to frigid temperatures and torrential down pours we came to the conclusion that it would be best to postpone until the weather decided to be on our side. We were afraid that we were not going to be able to go this week, either, because the original forecast was cold with the possibility of snow. Fortunately, the weather decided to cooperate - it was sunny and only a little bit chilly.
We left Judson at about 10:30 a.m. the morning of February 8th with sack lunches aboard. It was around a two and a half hour drive, but we had plenty to do to occupy the time. Many of us had homework or studying to catch up on, others of us just had to catch up on sleep. We also discussed our upcoming show that we are hosting at Judson ( it is the only Intercollegiate HorseShow Association show in the state of Alabama) on February 19, the same day as Judson's scholarship day.
*You should really attend and support your favorite Equestrian Team,
plus take a tour of our lovely campus, and participate in the testing to
qualify for some scholarship money.*
We arrived at Auburn's barn just in time to help catch horses and get them ready to ride. The members of their team were extremely friendly and assisted us greatly in finding the right horses and tack. By 1:30 p.m., we were all mounted and in the ring beginning to warm up. The couple of hours that we had to ride with them went by so quickly. We had the opportunity to do rail work and pattern exercises, and traded horses 2-3 times. This was really important for us because we ride “strange” horses every time we show. Switching horses during a practice gives us that much more experience quickly adapting to a new horse.
One of the things I learned on this trip is that just because I am riding somewhere new with a different trainer, on a different horse, does not mean that I am going to suddenly be a different rider. I am still going to have the same strengths and weaknesses as I have always had, but I also need to be ready to apply what I already know, remember where I have had problems and work on fixing them while being ready and open for what new advice the trainer has to offer.
The second thing that really stuck out to me was something that one of the Auburn coaches said to our team after we rode and were reviewing our session. He said that one of the biggest problems that equestrians have is that they do not consider themselves athletes, but that they are athletes and they need to train like they are athletes. I guess that stuck out to me because I have never considered myself to be athletic, let alone an athlete, and I don't train like one. My riding would be much better, though, if I did.
I am very grateful to have gotten the opportunity to go on this trip and get to work with another very talented team and their coaches. This is not something that everyone gets to do and it was very insightful seeing how other people train. I would like to say thank you to The Auburn University EquestrianTeam and to their coaches for taking the time from their busy practice schedule to let us come out and work with them, to Mrs.Jennifer, our coach, for making the arrangements and taking us, and to Judson for allowing us to go.
