Hunters, lets be real for a second here—our sport is a tad elitist. Just look at its roots: wealthy European landowners chasing fox with their hounds over hill and dale, dressed in tailored coats and velvet caps. This was not the pastime of the common man even back then.

Now of course the sport has evolved considerably, and is certainly more accessible to the masses, but it can and does still involve massive sums of money. If you want to play this game on a budget, you have to understand the limits of what you can control—you’re never going to outspend some of the folks in the hunter industry.

Which brings us to my shadbelly.

Over spring break this year, I went with Riverwoods Farm of Rocheport, Mo., to the Queenie Productions horse show in Lake St. Louis, Mo. There was a USHJA National Derby I wanted to do with my Thoroughbred, Happy Go Lucky, who I show in the adult amateurs. So I pulled my shadbelly out of the back of my closet about a month prior to the show to start fixing it up for the event.

I had found the coat hanging on a rack of consignment riding clothes at a schooling show in Lake St. Louis about two years ago. It was a Grand Prix brand, and had shiny gold buttons, with heavy tails backed in leather. It was way too big for me, and I couldn’t help feeling like something didn’t look quite right about it. But a glance at the price tag—of $30!!!—and I was sold—no way I was finding a shadbelly for less than that!

I had it taken in so I wasn’t swimming in it so much, and tucked it away in my closet for the next time I had an occasion to wear it. I wore it to one schooling show derby and lent it to a friend for a derby at a rated show before I figured out why something didn’t quite look right about it. I started noticing everyone else’s tails were so light, and flapping out behind them, and mine felt so heavy.

They actually had little weights sewn in the bottom of the hem, which the lady who sold it to me said were an added bonus feature. They were—for dressage! It was a black dressage shadbelly, with weighted tails, and BRIGHT gold buttons.

A normal person would probably sell the shadbelly to someone who oh, say, did dressage, but I knew I would never find a shadbelly that cheap again, so I set to work trying to disguise its now glaringly obvious dressagey-ness before our USHJA National Derby this spring.

First to go were the gold buttons—not a problem. A black Sharpie marker fixed those in 20 minutes! (You can’t really touch the buttons without getting purplish residue on your fingers, and you have to reapply a coat every time you button or unbutton it, but from a distance it looks swell!)

I tried to find a way to cut the weights out of the tails, but they were pretty firmly sewn in there, so I elected to leave them. Maybe heavy, immobile tails will be in this year. We’ll have to wait and see!

And then comes the vest points. Mine came attached to the shadbelly, just two little yellow triangles sewn on the front. I knew canary yellow was classic, but had seen a lot of different fun colors in the ring while covering the Winter Equestrian Festival (Fla.) and derby finals. Because my points were attached to the jacket, I couldn’t just buy new ones and swap them out.

Instead, a crafty friend of mine, Chloe Tyau (who borrowed the shadbelly once in its dressage state, and will use the new and improved model again for a show in May) helped me select a nice maroon fabric from the store, and a couple hours of folding, cutting, ironing and hot glueing later, we had new points!

I don’t have many occasions to use my shadbelly, so it’s a good thing there are kind neighbors
the next aisle over who know how to do a stock tie! Big thanks to Carson Ruff from Kennedy
Farms for fixing me up!

So why did I just waste all that time describing my ridiculous shadbelly to you? Here is where my point about the elite nature of our sport comes into play: if you want compete with the big dogs on a toy poodle budget (and not drive yourself mad), you have to come to terms with what you can and cannot control in this sport.

I wasted a good chunk of my junior days whining about my off-brand riding apparel, and blaming judges for not placing me in the hunters because I was on a Thoroughbred. What I’ve started figuring out as a wise, wise old adult amateur is how futile it is to be upset about things you can’t control.

You can’t control how deep other competitor’s pockets are, and you can’t be mad at them for having nicer/more horses (and accessories) than you. People who are born into wealthy families who provide them with strings of horses can’t help the situation they were born into any more than the person who is struggling to get by catch riding, grooming and braiding. As junior riders, we couldn’t control how big our riding budgets were, and those things don’t seem to change much as we move into the amateur or professional ranks.

So don’t waste your energy on Animo envy or Parlanti fever. I’m sure we would all look dapper in their apparel, but a hunt coat off the sales rack, a consignment fixer-upper shadbelly and a pair of Tuff Rider tall boots will do the trick, too!

Especially if you’re in the hunter ring, accept that you have very little control over whether or not the judge likes your horse. Can you magically turn your 15.3 Thoroughbred into a 17-hand warmblood? No? Me neither! And I wouldn’t want to—I love my horse dearly. I can’t control what judges think of him, only how well we perform on a given day.

At this last show, we had a round I would rank as one of the best of our nine years together. From the first jump to the last, every distance just appeared out of the corner, a perfect little hunter gap—every lead landed, not a foot out of place. I walked out of the ring with a big, stupid grin on my face—is this how Tori feels, like, everyday of her life? THIS IS AMAZING!

That round placed in the lower-middle of the class. For a moment, I felt that jealous monster rear its ugly head. “If he was a warmblood,” I thought, “if he was taller and slower and had a cute little Ralph Lauren logo on his butt, we’d have done better.”

But guess what—he’s not taller! Hasn’t grown an inch in the 9 years I’ve had him, and I don’t think that’s going to change! I reminded myself that for us, that was still an amazing round, and hey, maybe everyone else had amazing rounds too, or maybe this judge just doesn’t like our style.

We went in the USHJA National Derby later that night and placed sixth out of 26 with rounds that didn’t feel nearly as smooth. It’s just a crazy, subjective game we hunters play!

What’s a derby horse without his trusty pit crew? Me and Lucky with our trainer/keeper
of the sanity, Holly Dometrorch

So don’t waste energy on what judges think of your horse. Some days, you’ll look into the box to see an old, salt-and-pepper haired fellow or lady and know it’s the right day to be on a Throughbred, and some days it will be the younger set, who probably wonders if your horse spent too long in the dryer, or is actually a large pony galloping down the lines in the wrong division. You can’t control who they give ribbons to.

You have a choice the next time you hook up the trailer and head to a horse show—am I going to waste energy getting upset over things I can’t control, or am I going to put another coat of Sharpie on my shadbelly buttons, re-secure my points with Super Glue, and ride the best I can? It’s up to you!

Ann Glavan is a former editorial intern for The Chronicle of the Horse. Originally from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Ann grew up competing at A circuit shows in the hunter and equitation divisions, first on her pony Is A Belle and more recently on her horse Happy Go Lucky. Ann interned for Phelps Media Group during the 2014 FTI Winter Equestrian Festival before joining the Chronicle team for the summer, and she continues to freelance for the  Chronicle while she finishes her degree. She currently attends the University of Missouri and is studying journalism and economics.