Former top amateur competitor, Karen Evans Mundy, has won the All-Around Amateur title at the AQHA World Championship Show a record eight times on five different horses. She has had 19 World Champions, and 22 Reserve World Champions, won 6 AQHA High Point All Around Amateur Awards, and numerous individual awards. Mundy has also been All Around Amateur at the Quarter Horse Congress twice, and won the QH Congress All Around Open Horse.
Since 1974, Mundy had competed on the AQHA Circuit, and for the past thirty years, she was on the road showing and competing in the amateur all around events. She always got an adrenaline rush and excitement when she found a prospect and taught them new events and won on the national level. Mundy loved the challenge of starting a horse from scratch. “It was refreshing to start at the bottom and shape a new horse into a finished all-around horse,” Mundy said on the phone to GoHorseShow.com on the way to the AQHA World Show to help a client.
With all of these wins, you would think that Mundy had nothing to prove to anyone in the industry. The problem was that for some reason she still felt like she had to constantly prove to herself that she could win and remain on top.
“At the end of my Amateur career, it was no longer fun to show,” Mundy says, who is surprisingly very open and honest with her comments. “It became too grueling to try and compete on such a high level. I am a perfectionist, and it got the point where any mistake I made was absolutely devastating. I was putting so much pressure on myself that I got to the point I was having suicidal thoughts when things didn’t go as planned. My husband, Don, finally told me that maybe it was time for me to not do this anymore.”
When asked why she put so much pressure on herself, Mundy hesitates and then says, “I am a very competitive person, and I guess it is the way I’m made and how I was conditioned due to showing so many years. I loved the horses and the people, but the self-inflicted pressure was so intense that I knew I had to make a change.”
Mundy says she finally came to terms that she was burnt out and that it was time for her to do something else. But what? This is all she has ever known? It was her life, and horses were her only passion. After taking some time to reflect, this amateur decided that she wanted to become a coach and judge and turned in her amateur card.
“The pressure of winning was immediately replaced with the excitement of attending shows and helping other people achieve their goals,” Mundy explained. “I want to teach people how to ride and train their own horses. It is a different kind of pressure now, and mentally it is a lot better on me. I get nervous and want them to do well but I am able to put things in perspective.”
During her first year as a coach, Mundy’s client, Kaitlyn Bello of Weedsport, New York who bought her horse, Ask Me For Details recently won the Youth Equitation Over Fences at the 2010 AQHYA World Show.
“It was the most rewarding experience for me. She is such a great kid and worked really really hard for this. I was so excited that it all came together at the time I had planned. I told her all year long when she was struggling with her new horse,’That we are not trying to be perfect at this or that show, or practicing at our farm, we wanted to be perfect at the World Show’. It was just, if not more exciting seeing her win, as it would have been if I had won!”
When asking Mundy how she deals with clients that put too much pressure on themselves like she did when she showed, she says, “When they get upset, I totally get it. People may think they are poor sports, but it has nothing to do with them not winning–it has to do with the fact that they worked so hard and put so much time and energy into doing well, and they are disappointed when they make a mistake,” she said. “I tell them that it is okay to cry and that they will do better next time–it’s really all you can do. There is always another show and another day. Hopefully, my students can learn from my experiences and keep everything in perspective.”
