Eventing Nation: The Training Diaries with Allie Knowles

Some weekends, nothing seems to go your way. Samantha Clark talks to event rider Allie Knowles about bouncing back.

Top photo: Roxy show-jumping the Paul Frazier Memorial Combined Training Show at the Kentucky Horse Park a week after being eliminated cross-country at Southern Pines. 

From Samantha:

There are so many sayings that try and make sense of, or make it easier to deal with the inevitable disappointment that goes hand -in- hand with trying to compete horses professionally – “Horses are great levelers” springs to mind, “Pride comes before a fall”,  and my mother’s favourite, – “it’s character building, Darling!” (never made me feel better at all!) I must admit to being a tiny bit nervous when I called Allie to ask if we might do an update as she had just returned from a very wet, and ultimately unsuccessful trip all the way to Southern Pines with her two 6 year old mares that we’ve been following, Komik and Roxy. Having set off on her journey on the back of a fantastic two weeks training with Buck Davidson in Florida, and a couple of weeks consolidation at home in Kentucky, to get all the way to North Carolina and be eliminated on both of them cross country might have been crushing but we horsey gals….! Tough stuff. I’m incredibly grateful, as always, to Allie for being so generous with her time as we chronicle her horses’ journeys up the ranks, but especially for being so frank and open too, in both good times and bad. I caught up with Allie in person at the Paul Frazier Memorial combined training show at the Horse Park and we talked about what went wrong, what happens next, and on a happier note,  a very important entry that she just made that begins with R and ends in X!

Allie and Last Call warming up for a run-through their Advanced test in preparation for The Fork, and then Rolex

Many, many thanks to Allie and her team, and wishing her the very best preparation for Rolex. Thank you for reading, and Go AK Eventing!

The new and improved Komik – listening to Allie in the dressage!