Following Up

This has been a crazy week.  Two exams, 1 quiz, homework due, and I squeezed in three horse shows, and have autocross tomorrow, too.  Next week, 2 more exams and another quiz!  The pace of summer school is insane, but I still know I made the right choice versus staying where I was at.

My last blog chronicled the adventures of me and Lar at the Oldham and Franklin County Fairs.  I had planned to take Legs to the Grant County Western show in Saturday in a couple hunt seat classes and horsemanship.  But she was still a little sore following her last farrier visit and I decided it best to give her more time off.  She was trimmed a little shorter than I'd like, but her feet had broken up thanks to stomping at flies (despite her plastic shoes and the daily applications of fly spray the ponies receive) so there wasn't much alternative.  Contrary to most navicular horses, she's soundest late into the shoeing cycle and most likely to be sore following being reset.  The show had just a few classes that Lar could go in, two in hand and 1 riding, so I thought it wouldn't be too taxing to take him instead.

In hindsight I wish I'd skipped out.  He was a good sport, but pretty pooped after the previous two shows this week.  When I loaded him up to go home, he just stood at the doorway of the trailer with a "this is the last time for a while, right?" pleading sort of look before I finally coaxed him on.  In showmanship, he didn't even want to trot with me, which isn't like him, and I had to use lots of leg to keep him trotting in our pleasure class.  I don't think it would have mattered much anyway, since we were a bit out of our element and out of our league at a largely AQHA crowd type of show.  The show management decided to allow cross-entering between the WT and WTC classes which they usually don't do at this show, which meant that my WT class was full of trainers on finished horses just looking to cash in on the payback money being offered.  We were the only hunter horse amidst a crowd of fancy western pleasure horses.  Nope, not gonna be our day.

Placings wise, the show was a total flop.  But it did give me some valuable info.  I've concluded that 3 shows in 4 days is too many!  I'm sure 2 of them being night shows with carnivals was especially tiring for him.  It was my first time using his tail extension.  Everyone else at the show had one, so when in Rome...  The first time I put it in, it didn't look so great; the second time was better, but I'll probably reserve it for more important shows since it was hard not to rip hair out when removing it.  I learned that I can do a running braid in just over the time it takes to hold one flat class.  I also concluded that Lar looks/does better in hand when presented as a hunter horse.  He looks beautiful in his silver show halter, but compared to the real QH, he just doesn't have that heavy muscled stock horse look.  Riding wise, the old Lar would have had fits about being ridden when tired.  New Lar with nose net trucked on faithfully - he just needed a lot more leg.  But he stayed soft, focused, and on the bit.  This is HUGE progress over how we were going just a week ago.  He has forgotten how to back under saddle this week, so we'll do some refresher work on that - after he's had a few days of R&R to recover from all the showing.  I'm looking forward to all of the new progress we can make now that I have a more willing and relaxed partner!

On a side note, I have had four friends lose their horses unexpectedly during the past year (colic, laminitis, EPM complications).  It's a sobering reminder to the rest of us to hug our equine friends often and appreciate them for their individuality and all that they give to us while asking so little in return.