Forgotten Spurs and the Ride That Taught Me Patience

The alarm went off at quarter past four on a foggy Saturday in late autumn, and I was already half out of bed before the second beep. Archie had been clipped, washed, and plaited the night before, and his leather halter was hanging by the back door waiting for the float. We were heading to a one-day event at Boneo Park, just south of Melbourne, and the nerves had been sitting in my stomach since Tuesday. There is always that strange mix of excitement and dread the morning of a comp, a kind of fizzy feeling that makes you double-check your boots, your test sheet, and your stock of safety pins twice before you even load the horse.

I had laid out my gear the night before on the kitchen table in the order I always dress for eventing: breeches, boots, half chaps, shirt, stock tie, jacket, gloves, hairnet, and finally the small leather pouch that holds my spurs. That pouch was sitting on the kitchen bench as I walked out the door at half past four in the morning, and I did not notice. I locked up, climbed into the cab, and pulled out of the driveway with Archie nickering behind me in the float, completely unaware that the smallest piece of equipment I owned was about to be left behind.

It was not until I pulled into the Caltex at Ballan for a coffee and a toilet break, around the time the sun was coming up over the paddocks, that I reached for my spurs and felt nothing but the lining of the bag. My stomach dropped. The event started at eight. Boneo was still forty minutes away on the Western Freeway, and even if I turned around and went home, I would lose my dressage time and probably any chance of a clear round. So I sat in the driver's seat for a minute, watching the magpies peck at the bitumen, and decided I would just have to ride without them.

The Long Drive to Werribee Park

The rest of the drive felt longer than usual, even with the windows down and the country music playing low on the radio. Archie was happy enough in the float, swaying slightly with every bend in the road, and I could hear him chewing the haynet I'd tied up for him. I, on the other hand, was running through every transition in my head and trying to remember what it felt like to ask for a canter lead with nothing on my heel. I had been riding in spurs since I was about nineteen. They had become such a natural part of my leg that I genuinely could not remember the last time I had asked Archie to do anything serious without them.

By the time I turned off the freeway and started heading down towards the horse trials, I had talked myself into a sort of grim acceptance. Plenty of people ride without spurs, especially in the dressage phase. Plenty of riders on the British teams do their test in plain snaffle bridles and no spurs at all, and the world keeps spinning. The trick, I told myself, was to use my seat, my voice, and a much sharper half-halt with my core than I was used to needing. I parked next to a row of floats near the stables, gave Archie a quick pat, and went to find the secretary to let her know I had arrived.

Settling Archie Without My Usual Aids

The atmosphere at Boneo on a competition day is its own little world. There are floats parked three deep under the big gums, kids in too-clean breeches chasing dogs, mums carrying thermos flasks and coolers full of cut fruit, and somewhere a Labrador is always barking at nothing in particular. I found a set of yards, unpacked Archie, and started my usual routine: a quick brush-off, a stretch, picking out his feet, putting on his shipping boots, and walking him down to the warm-up area. The whole time I kept glancing at my gear bag as if a pair of spurs might magically appear.

At the mounting block I tightened the girth, checked my stirrups twice, and swung up. Without the familiar click of the buckle on my boot, my leg felt strangely light, and not in a good way. It felt untethered. I picked up the reins, asked Archie to walk on, and tried a couple of gentle leg yields in the warm-up arena just to see how he responded. He looked at me, then looked at my boot, then looked at me once more, the way horses do when they have been promised something that never quite comes.

I walked over to a couple of other riders I knew from the Tygalgah and Wallaby Hill circuits and asked if anyone had a spare pair of short black spurs lying around. No one did. One girl said she had a pair of roller balls she could lend me, but they had bent prongs and she wasn't game to give them a go herself. I thanked her anyway and headed back to my spot, figuring I would just have to wing it. Archie was a little hotter than usual in the warm-up, the way he always is when he thinks something is missing, and I had to work hard to keep his attention on me.

Warm-Up Without the Usual Edge

The first canter transition told the whole story. I closed my leg, sat deep, and Archie took two lazy trot steps before throwing in a half-hearted canter that was more like a fast trot with a stiff back. I half-halted, brought him back to trot, and tried again. Same result. Without the prick of the spur at the moment of the aid, he had every reason in the world to pretend he hadn't heard. I took a breath, lengthened my leg, used my voice in that low cluck I save for transitions, and squeezed with both calves. This time he stepped into canter properly, but it took twice as much effort as it would have with even a mild rowel on my heel.

The other riders in the warm-up were doing their thing, mostly looking at their own tests, but I could feel a couple of glances coming my way. One of the dads, an old bloke in an Akubra who has been eventing longer than I have been alive, gave me a knowing nod when he saw me go past without any spurs. He pulled up alongside me on his big warmblood and said, "You'll ride better without them, sweetheart. Trust me." I smiled and thanked him, but I wasn't entirely convinced. I spent the next twenty minutes really working on my half-halts, my lateral work, and the canter transitions until Archie was going properly forward off my seat alone.

The Dressage Phase

When my bell went for the dressage test, I was as ready as I was going to be. I trotted down the centre line, saluted the judge, and tried to put everything else out of my mind. The test asked for a medium walk on a long rein, some twenty-metre circles in working trot, a few lengthenings, and the canter work on both leads. The medium walk was actually quite nice, because Archie tends to jog if I am tense, and being spurless forced me to sit deeper and breathe more. The judge, an English lady visiting from Sydney for the season, gave me a kind nod and a little smile as I passed her.

The trot work was where it showed. My left leg, which has always been my weaker side, did not have the same clarity, and I could feel Archie drifting slightly off the track on the left rein circles. He was not being naughty, he was simply not getting the same clear message I usually give him. The canter work went better than I expected, mostly because I had spent the whole warm-up getting him listening. I finished the test, saluted, and trotted out of the arena with the strange mix of relief and disappointment that comes from knowing you could have done better.

The judge scored me a 28.5, which was four points off my usual average at this level. I knew exactly where I lost the marks, and I knew exactly what I had left on the table. As I walked back to the yards, a friend from Kyneton who had been watching from the rail called out, "Where are your spurs, mate?" I just laughed and shook my head.

Show Jumping and the Cross-Country Round

Show jumping felt like a turning point. Without spurs to fall back on, I rode much more with my seat and my upper body, and Archie jumped out of his skin. He had three rails in the bag over the first six fences because I was sitting up too quickly after each one. I came back, took a breath, and remembered something my coach in the Adelaide Hills once told me years ago: hands follow hips, hips follow heels, heels follow heart. Without the spurs, my heels had nothing to lean on, so my hips had to do the work, and my hands had to stay soft.

I jumped a clear round in the show jumping. Archie was fantastic, and I was completely spent by the end of it, the way you are after a course that has demanded everything from your core. The cross-country was even better. There is something about a clear cross-country round on a horse who is listening to every whisper of your body that makes the whole day worth it. We came home inside the time on a bit of a fast track, with only one slightly hairy moment at the big log complex at fence seven, where I had to sit up and use my voice rather than my leg.

When I finished and pulled up at the finish flags, I was grinning like an absolute drongo. Archie was blowing, his sides heaving, his ears pricked, and I leant down and gave him a pat on the neck that probably pushed him out of balance. A steward came up and gave me the all-clear, and someone handed me a sausage roll from the club canteen. I sat on the mounting block and ate it while Archie munched on a handful of grass, and I thought about how stubborn I had been about those spurs for years.

What I Took Home From the Day

The biggest lesson from that day at Boneo was not about riding. It was about how much I had been relying on a piece of metal to do the talking for me. Spurs are a useful tool, especially when you are schooling a fresh horse or need a clear refinement on a half-halt, but they are not the only tool, and they certainly are not the most important one. The seat, the leg without the spur, the breath, the timing, and the voice are all far more powerful when they are used properly, and I had spent years letting the spur do half of that work for me.

When I got home that night, after unloading Archie and tipping out my float and hanging up my gear, I sat at the kitchen table with a glass of something cold and looked at the small leather pouch still sitting on the bench where I had left it that morning. I laughed out loud. The next morning, I went down to the Horseland in Geelong and bought myself a second pair of cheap black spurs, and I keep them in the glove box of my truck from then on. I have not forgotten them since, but I have also ridden two more events without them, just to keep my leg honest. Archie likes the spurless version of me. I think I do too.