DUURING GET YOUR WHITE ASS OVER HERE
Jeez, people. I need mah sleep too. But yes, it's straight up my alley.
Question for Cavalry reenactors here, how hard is it to be a cav reenactor compared to lets say infantry. For groups you are expected to own your own horse correct? So that adds to the responsibility and the price. Just want to see the opinion of any Cav reenactor here. Also the training and the performance of everything in events.
For a start; It's different. It's seriously not infantry + horse, it really is a different kind of re-enactment. Authentic campaigning and stuff like that is suddenly really hard to do, because you 1. got so much shit and 2. have to take care of the horse. In my group, we have no add-on-members, so we can't keep a fire burning or have someone cook for us. That being said, we do have one campaign event every 2 years (La boissere) and everybody goes full campaign there. Which is why I won't go to those events until I got full campaign gear.
Hard? Well, as hard as it is to ride a horse in formation. The more you train, the better it gets. It's certainly harder then infantry simply because you're not moving yourself, but instead you are moving a very big beast that might throw you off just for the heck of it. Three of our eight members have own horses, the others, including me, rent them. If possible, we rent them at the same stables we also do exercise-days. So while the horses are rentals, they are a little bit more 'ours'. We're very lucky to have that. But sometimes you gotta go with local rental and that might or might not work out.
However, as for money - We usually get paid by the event-organizers (cos they like cav and all). I've done two mounted events now, and first time it cost me 50 euros, and the second - zip.
Ililsa, do you have riding experience?