The Show
I didn’t pre-register for the show since I was waiting until the last minute to see what level we could get to and if it would be worth even entering. On the way over to the clinic I had pretty much decided we weren’t going to show. We had the basics down pretty well but were far from a finished show team.
Brandy had done everything I asked of her. Her ability to learn things is amazing. Truth be told, she probably has 60 days riding on her. And only about a month of serious, consistent riding. She’s that good. Anything we lack in the show pen is my fault.
Heidi gave me the encouragement to show. She said just use it as a training class. Go ahead and ride her in the snaffle two handed and get her some arena experience. So she got us signed up in the rookie class.
Illinois isn’t exactly reining country. Least not around here. Barrel racers and pleasure horses is most of what you see. And those people that wear black outfits and ride saddles that look like saddle pads with stirrups. So I’m figuring be me and the other 4 folks from clinic and maybe one or two more in the class.
Well we ride out of the indoor arena and see trailers and horses….lots of trailers horses. 26 entries in rookie class alone. We draw number 16 so we got some time to look around, warm up and see some runs.
I’m not much for the warm up pen. Always got some trainer or parent barking out orders like a marine drill sargent to a some young rider. Reminders and some encouragement to overcome show day jitters is one thing but training day was yesterday. And do they think I’m gonna go over and give em a few bucks because they holler loud enough for me to hear their “expert” advice? If you ain’t settin a horse get the hell outta the warm up pen. Thank you I feel better now.
Ever heard about the power of positive thinking? Great concept and works real good. Goes right out the window when they call our number. Will she balk at the gate? Spook at the banners flapping on the fence? Figure all these folks are here to see a rodeo? Decide this nice big arena be a good place show me she ought to be entered in the Kentucky Derby?
She walks in like she’s done it all her life. She feels confident and ready. She’s come here to play. When we stop in the center she feels relaxed. 4 left and 4 right. A little sloppy but we stop dead center both ways. Large, small, large right, Large, small, large left. We run the large circles fast…she’s got good balance at speed and felt like she was relaxed enough to stretch out so I turned her loose. Felt good. She slowed a little bit for the small circles but we’ll need to work on getting a little slower so it looks better. We hadn’t worked on it too much so I was happy.
Heidi told me in the clinic to go ahead and drop her to a trot for a few steps if I thought she’d need it to change leads. But Brandy’s always been a good natural changer. One of the things I noticed when I bought her. And she didn’t really need to be trained to change…she wanted to to be in the correct lead. Just had to show her the cues I’d give her when we we’re gonna change directions. So we went for it and she popped em off like an old pro. I knew we had it when I straightened her just before the change…I could feel her get ready for the outside leg to tell her when.
I blew the rollbacks. I hesitated too long between the stop and the turnback. I don’t know why. She’s a good rollback horse. I still don’t know why I did it and I feel like I let her down. And I did it on both of them. Why did I do that?
The stop and back was good. Probably woulda been a plus move if she was in sliders. Slacked the reins for the stop and just a light shake for the back up. Tucked her head nice and came back straight. I liked it.
Our score…59. We won. No we didn’t win the class. But we knew what we did and how long it took us to do it. We trotted out of the arena, both of us feeling good. That’s what it’s all about. The numbers will take care of themselves with more time. Ain’t no ribbons or trophies for what we done. But there’s horse treats and iced tea back at the truck.