Horse Show Cookies

Training Journal

If you’re riding a horse, you’ve already won.

 

 
I have a show cookie tradition.

I’m not a baked goods person. I prefer my sugar closer to the source, Welch’s® Fruit Snacks being my current besetting sin. Basically sugar in gel form. And Coke, but that is a constant. So, while I like cakes and cookies well enough, I can generally take them or leave them. The exception is the entire Pepperidge Farm cookie line, particularly mint brussels, when I can find them.

The Sausalito version has chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. This is my go-to horse show food. It’s one of the few things I will eat when I am nervous. Not the most nutritious choice, but it gets calories into me. The self-imposed rule says Sausalitos are reserved for horse show days.

Lately, I have added an amendment to the tradition. If I am not going to a horse show, I treat myself to a bag. It has to be a show that I had a legitimate chance of attending. There is a horse show somewhere every weekend. I’d be up to my armpits in cookies and have no chance of fitting into my jods [Motivation, Diet Progress].

Three weeks ago, I earned two bags. We elected not to go to the first Full Circle Horse Park dressage show. Bag one. We would do the Southern Sunday barrel race instead. Then they moved the show [Soggy Week]. Bag two.

Last weekend, there were two more shows I did not attend. A saddle seat show in Louisiana [Predicting the Future] and the second dressage show, which was the reason I did not put my name down on the ASB list. I limited myself to one bag. My restraint is commendable.

I’m more okay with missing all of these shows than you might expect, given my attitude toward accumulating acetate. One) I did get a chance to attend the second barrel race [Not From Around These Parts]. Two) Although I still want to do the tiny event, and still need to give Rodney a chance to get used to the event grounds, we’ve put dressage on hold for a while. Neither horse nor rider enjoy it. We’ll work on maybe, possibly jumping, then circle back to the sandbox when an eventlet becomes more likely.

Of course, on my down days, that truthful but unhelpful inner voice reminds me that the product of all this work will be the chance to jump 2′. Whee. I try not to think about that.

Onwards!

Do you have any horse show food traditions?

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott