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Since I hear “we’re not ready to show yet” quite a lot from folks I figured I’d tell about my first show.

I was about 18 when I bought my first horse from a buddy and kept her at his barn. A 9 yo AQHA dun mare…”Susie”. She stood about 14.2 and was as broke as they come. She’d been used as a ranch horse so there wasn’t much she hadn’t seen. I put a lot of miles on her on the roads and trails.

After a few months into my new found passion there was a flyer for a horse show coming to a small town near us. Just a little open show with the usual halter and pleasure classes. So my buddy talks me into trying it. I figured it’d just be some locals getting together on a Saturday to ride their horses a little.

Friday night was spent getting spiffed up. Bath (Susie and me), clip bridle path, clip the mane, cut off some whiskers (Susie and me), some extra brushing, wipe off the saddle and tack, shine up the boots, clean shirt and pants and we’re ready to go. Buddy said my clip job looked like it was done 2 weeks before.

Now I didn’t have a trailer at the time and never was much one for borrowing stuff so only one option left…ride to the show. It was about 6 or 7 miles…no big deal…figured probably be some other folks that lived close be doing the same. So we saddle up in the morning and head off. My buddy and his wife would come over later in the truck to watch.

Well we ride over and come around the last corner to a little surprise. Big shiny rigs, living quarter trailers, fancy shiny horses, people wearing show clothes that cost more than my truck. Well maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Figured at least I could sit on my horse and watch since I’d rode over here.

So buddy shows up and I chastise him for getting me to do this. Told him I rode all the way over here when I coulda came in the truck to watch. He’s laughing…now I’m figuring out why he came in the truck. So he wanders off and next thing I know he comes back with a back number….tells me he paid my entry in the western pleasure class so I’d better go over to the warm up area and get ready.

I go over to the warm up area. Gotta wear sunglasses for the sun shinin off all that silver on them saddles. Them horses were lopin slower than Susie’s walk. I remember thinking if she loped that slow we’d never get home. So we just kinda walk and trot around so we wouldn’t lap the rest of em too many times.

Now it’s time. I go into the arena feeling like people called all their friends and relatives just to watch me screw this up. I figure out to stay by the rail and kinda keep in a single line. So far so good, just walking. Then judge calls for the trot. Now if Susie had a fault it was her trot…pretty darned rough. But once she got with those other horses it was a nice slow, pretty smooth trot. I guess she kinda figured out this show thing quicker than I did. Once we loped she tried her best to match them other horses but we still lapped em.

So I figured we survived and could be on our way home. But the judge calls some of us to the center. I figured we did something wrong but there was some pretty nice horse there in the center with us. Judge walks down the line and starts asking each rider to back their horse. I couldn’t wait until he got to us. Susie would back up with the best of em. Trot backwards if I asked her to but it seemed judge wanted a slow back. So he gets to us and I touch her with the rein and give a little squeeze…Susie locks up tighter than a federal prison. Won’t move. A little more rein and she throws her head up. Judge moves down the line. Her way of saying this goin slow horse show stuff really wasn’t her thing and she didn’t want to be getting no ribbons and having me haulin her to shows.

We leave the arena and buddy comes over all happy cause we made the final cut. Said we’d of probably won something if we coulda backed up. Think Susie smiled when he said that. On the ride home a few of them shiny rigs passed us on the road. Susie was showin em what a real lope was….one that gets you home at the end of the day.

Just a few things I’ve come to like to do when working a horse.

Fencing - Reiners always talk about fencing their horses to work on stops and rollbacks. I do that some too but I like to use the fence to get their attention and respect. Doesn’t even have to be a fence…sometimes I use the border of my property to the corn field next door, anything to use as a reference. Simple enough - just ride along the fence and when the horse drifts move him pretty abruptly in the opposite direction. The fence gives both you and your horse a reference to keep him from cheating or you from nitpicking. When I get to a corner I like to keep em guessing…sometimes turn the corner, sometimes rollback, sometimes just stop and wait. Also helps to work on alignment and some with speed control through the gaits.

Rounding - Pretty much same as fencing but I use the outside of our round pen. Probably works better than fencing for gaining respect because as they come around they get closer to the barn and really think they’re gonna get to go that way. Also gives a young horse a little aid in making nice circles and the pen helps keep them from leaning too much to the inside.

90’s - Riding squares. Just ride a straight line and when you want to turn make it a sharp 90 degree turn not a round corner. Helps horses get used to keeping forward motion in their spins.

Gates - Working on lateral movements is kind of a challenge for me. So I kinda came up with the idea of having the horse wanna do it. At the end of session I’ll take them over to a gate to the lot and make them work it…sidepass, forehand turn, back up. They seem to get pretty good at it pretty quick when they know that gate leads to being unsaddled.

Trail Backing - You’ll see this in the trail classes at a show. Lay down some timbers or something and have the horse back through them. I use landscape timbers cause they kind of make noise and move around when a horse steps on them….they don’t like that and pay attention more to what they’re doing. I like to make a cross pattern so I can back a horse straight or turn the corners left or right. Gets em really thinking about their footwork and working their back ends.Can start out with the alleyways pretty wide and narrow them up as they get better. Real good exercises for hip control. Can also do some turnaround work in the middle of the cross.

Some of these things I do sometimes just to keep me or the horses from getting bored. Some horses seem to need a reason to do things and work better with some references to work around or through.