horse show #1
May. 17th, 2003 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joflasherSo today I showed a horse for the first time in almost 10 years. It was as hectic and exciting as I remembered. It was made even more so by the fact that both of the women I was with and myself were on young horses on their first trip away from home. All in all, we did pretty well. Sage and Altisa were skitish and frightened but they settled down. Stoney was a nutcase but she's a nutcase at home half the time too. Stacey, the woman riding her, stayed with her, though and no one got hurt.
I only showed Altisa in two classes, Green horse walk/trot equitation and Green horse walk/trot pleasure. Unfortunately, I broke one of the first rules of showing, which is always use gear you are familar with. I switched out my brown stirrup leathers for black ones to match my saddle and I didn't get to test the length before going in the ring. I had them a good 2 inches too long, which made for, um, ungraceful posting. They were comfortable at a walk but there wasn't any place to trot or warmup to test them. We would have done better in equitation if I had had my stirrups the right length. We did take 4th out of a class of about a dozen in the pleasure class. For the non-horsey people here, equitation is judging the rider's skill and the "picture" the horse and rider pair make. Pleasure is mainly judging the horse's responsiveness and form. It must have been close, since the judges went down the line and asked about 4 of us to back our horses up after we were done doing everything else. All of those 4 placed. Luckily, Altisa is good at backing up and gave me no problems about it. Neither of the other girls from the farm placed in any of their clasess but they still did well considering.
Okay, enough horses for now.
Yay
I only showed Altisa in two classes, Green horse walk/trot equitation and Green horse walk/trot pleasure. Unfortunately, I broke one of the first rules of showing, which is always use gear you are familar with. I switched out my brown stirrup leathers for black ones to match my saddle and I didn't get to test the length before going in the ring. I had them a good 2 inches too long, which made for, um, ungraceful posting. They were comfortable at a walk but there wasn't any place to trot or warmup to test them. We would have done better in equitation if I had had my stirrups the right length. We did take 4th out of a class of about a dozen in the pleasure class. For the non-horsey people here, equitation is judging the rider's skill and the "picture" the horse and rider pair make. Pleasure is mainly judging the horse's responsiveness and form. It must have been close, since the judges went down the line and asked about 4 of us to back our horses up after we were done doing everything else. All of those 4 placed. Luckily, Altisa is good at backing up and gave me no problems about it. Neither of the other girls from the farm placed in any of their clasess but they still did well considering.
Okay, enough horses for now.
Yay
