The Horse's Maine, Maine's Own Equine Newspaper

Hobson's Choice
by Clarissa Edelston
(©The Horse's Maine, August 2008)

Technology are not us. Trying to be a new age equestrian, I boldly set off to complete my event entry on EventEntry.com. I even had an account there from a successful encounter a couple of years ago. The first small glitch was that I had not the faintest notion of what my password might be – “Secret Squirrel”? Nope. Fortunately, before I was inspired to open a new account so I could write down the password and tape it to my computer screen, I found that I could request my existing password and it would email it to me, immediately. OK, first hurdle successfully negotiated.
Bear in mind that it is now 7 pm on the opening day of a perennially oversubscribed event. The last pick up at the postal center is 9 pm. My computer at home is filled with sparrows so I am using the computer at work. To my delight, I find that when I set up the account, I actually inputted my rider information and that of my horse, and, wonder of wonders, it was still there! So I went on and picked the event and the level at which I wished to enter. I am technologically brilliant!
Yes, well, now a screen popped up that said, “You idiot, you have no trainer assigned and you have to because obviously YOU should not be allowed out alone on a horse, much less a computer.” I went back to the profile screen, thus losing everything I had selected thus far, and looked at my rider profile. “Name, address, age and shoe size” but no place to slander a trainer. On to the horse profile. OK, there is a line for trainer. I duly filled it in, saved and went back. See, I did learn SOMETHING about computers, save everything constantly. Now I had to reselect the event and the level.
“You moron! You still have no trainer and you still can’t go any farther!” popped up. I went back to be sure that a trainer appeared in my horse profile. Yup, there it is. I saved again, just to be sure and returned to reselect yet again the event and the level. OK, maybe the machine was out getting coffee and didn’t realize what had been imputed in the interim. Or maybe everyone at EventEntries.com went home at five and changes couldn’t be made after that point.
I decided to go on to “experience” and worry about my trainer later. This Scarlett O’Hara format often works out for me. In this case, it did not but for a different reason. I had to report my last three competitions, my scores for each phase and THE DATE of each competition. Well, because of my broken hand, I only competed once last year, my scores are all from prior years, and my daughter competed the Wonderhorse last year. OK, I don’t know any of the dressage scores, hers or mine, because that isn’t the kind of information that stays in my head any better than the required movements do. I do know the stadium and cross country scores because there rarely are any and so a rail would tend to be memorable.
But I never even had to worry about the dressage scores because I couldn’t figure out the exact dates of the events and it wouldn’t accept anything less. I know that UNH is always the last weekend in April or the first weekend in May. I know that Kingsbury Hill is the 4th of July weekend. I know that GMHA is the first weekend in August. Armed with my checkbook’s three year calendar, I set about figuring out the dates for last year and the year before. No matter what dates I tried, the machine told me they weren’t right. I even tried the Snowfields date, since I absolutely know what that date was, and still it said “Tilt.” Well, if it knows what the damn’ date is, why doesn’t IT fill it in???
In desperation, as I contemplated permanent waiting list status, I called the event organizer to leave a piteous message that I was NOT using the computer entry format but the old-fashioned paper one for which I KNOW the answers. To my astonishment, she answered the phone. When I explained my dilemma, she actually opened EventEntries.com and, by trial and error, found the button that would allow the addition of the trainer to the rider profile, which apparently is the only place that the machine will recognize it, and we agreed that I didn’t need the experience part. I filed my entry on line and mailed a copy before the last postal pick up on the opening date.
What’s next? Virtual events? With the price of gas those might not be a bad idea!