3 strikes! Oh wait - wrong sport.

So we've been doing some chatting about fun ways to eliminate yourself at horse trials.  With riders brand-new to the sport, it sometimes seems like an unending and rather unbelievable list of randomness.  But I think I've now topped them all.  After however many years eventing, for the first time ever I managed to kick myself out before ever even being in!   How?  Yeah I switched the mailing addresses on two of my entry forms -- so the one for next weekend went to the one for next month (and presumably vice versa).  The one for next weekend was handed to me today by the organizer of the one for next month who very kindly brought it to me at the show.  *sigh*   She managed to avoid rolling her eyes at me *g*   I'm really not sure how :)   Only issue about that being, the closing date for that show was yesterday.  :(   Ah well.  Won't likely make that mistake again -- there are too many new ones out there to make!

But while we're at it...  Maybe run through some others:

- an old favourite was carrying your whip into dressage, but they've backed that off now so it's not actually elimination, just a penalty :)   Progress?   Unless you're in the States of course where it's actually legal.

- leaving the dressage ring is often a fun and entertaining way of ending your day *really* early.  It also gives you a good excuse to go make friends with the TD and convince him/her you really do steer well enough to be allowed to jump!

- wearing boots in dressage is even worse -- that falls under the category of ways to eliminate yourself without even realizing you've done it!

- another one in that category is forgetting your tack check.   Some tack-checkers will actively search for riders to make sure everyone is good to go, but others are too busy for that and if you forget...  Well that's your loss.   Imagine putting in brilliant dressage, jumping double clear, and returning to find an E next to your name...  So not fun at all.

- there are, of course, boring ways to eliminate yourself:  unintentionally dismounting or stopping too many times in either jumping phase are the most common.  But really, are they even worth mentioning?   Well apparently >;-P  But not by much.

- oh - more for the "don't even realize you've done it" category - jumping the wrong fence on xc.  3 fences all side-by-side.  You jump the one that looks ok but slightly-scary.   When the scores are posted you see a letter instead of a number and go to question it.   Turns out you went one level higher than you should've.  Oops.   Lower has the same result, but somehow all the riders but one that I know who've done this have gone up a level.  The one was running advanced - there was nowhere to go but down :)   And it shows that riders of ALL levels do this occasionally *g*

- jumping a warm-up fence backwards is one we often see in the lower levels.   Remember:  Red on Right.  White on Left.  Insanity in the Middle.  >;-P

hmmmmm those are the classic ones that come to mind off the top of my head.   Any others you know of?