The Big Day

Well, it's late, and I'm blogging from bed, I'm that tired. But I have been waiting for this day for so long, I wanted to tell you all about it!

I liken horse shows to beauty pageants! They are the same thing, the same mentality. I was a competitive baton twirler, and also did a few pageants, so I know the scene. The mom that lives vicariously through her child, carting around a case full of Aqua Net, white shoe polish, rosin, and more beauty utensils than a full-service salon.

And so it is with horse shows. Some people pull out all the stops and have the monogrammed curtains to put over their horses' stalls, the fancy business cards, the "offices" set up in spare stalls. I noticed that the miniature horse farms tended to put a lot of emphasis on having all of the "goodies." One was vacuuming off their horse, they all had trendy stretchy blankets on with strange patterns (fire and leopard prints, etc.). I half expected them to emerge from the "office" with a 2" diameter curling iron, a can of aqua net and some mascara!

So this was somewhat of a blast from the past for me. I arrived at 8:30 am and immediatly began cleaning Major's harness. We polished brass and cleaned the leather. I then blackened his hooves and groomed him. There were three of us helping all day, with other volunteers coming and going. We put on the harness and cleaned the gig (horse cart). Before we knew it, it was 1:30 and time to start the competition!

The first competition was a driving class, where M had to drive in between cones. The cones had tennis balls on them, and the object was to drive through them with the fastest time without knocking off any of the balls. They came in 2nd with the 2nd fastest time.

The next driving class was all about Major. He was a dream! I promised that if he won, I would buy him a bag of cotton candy. And he did!! He came in first place, and he was clearly the crowd favorite, so it was great to see him succeed. Watching him do his victory pass was amazing-- he knew he had won that competition!!

He got the cotton candy.

The next classes were later in the day, and she rode another horse for one class. The horse was continually spooking during the warmup, and ended up breaking his bridle so that we had to find some electrical tape to get through the show (a McGuyver fix also reminscent of my baton twirling days!)! He came in 4th, which was not entirely unexpected, and also celebrated. He could have done a lot worse.

Then, she rode Major again in western pleasure. Unfortunately, his bridle didn't fit properly, and his tongue kept going over the bit. It's not supposed to be held under the tongue!! He was sticking out his tongue and pulling crazily. He also came in 4th. We were disappointed that he did not perform better, but were happy with the 4th place because there were more in the class than 4.

I will post pictures tomorrow.

That is all the news for now. Night!