Sunday, October 28, 2007

Our FIRST show! Not a big show, a fun show. Great experience for the little gal. She had to stand around all the horses that pick on her and ones she didn't know.

We did four classes barrels, pennant race, pole bending and trail. We trotted the barrels and then cantered the home stretch. One of the gals took a lovely picture of us which I have to get scanned in. She did well at the pennant but seemed to think she should check out the bucket of sand, there is always grain in buckets was her thought process. The pole bending she did very well going out and then the first couple going back and then we had some wide turns. Not sure what I did differently. Not bad for our first exposure. The trail class was set up pretty easy. No gate or mailbox. We went over two poles which were holding down a blue tarp, walked over a flower box (she wanted to sample them), I was able to pick up the bag of cans but then must have hit the saddle and she scooted. To lessen her fear, I dropped the cans. I have seen horses take off bucking when they got scared so I didn't want to take a chance. She then immediately settled down so I continued and put the imaginary bag on the next barrel. We walked through two standards with ballons on them. She was hesitant but when I pressed her she went right on through. I tried to back into the pole open box but could only get a couple of feet to move. We then moved on to the next obsticle, a box of poles where I dismounted and then picked up all her feet, exited and moved as fast as we could to the finish.

We might not have won any classes but she is my champion. Team Johnson is back!!

She got a bit of grain, a nice brushing and lots of treats.