The Colt Journal, day 8: Driggs Fairgrounds

Saturday was a small, local horse show at the Driggs Arena. I like to support the local horse clubs, so I was debating entering Amigo in the Trails Course before a mounted patrol assignment later that day. I woke up that morning and ended up loading all three in the trailer. If nothing else, just bringing the herd to events is good for them. All three were sacked out at the trailer for most of the day while the events played out. I entered all three, Amigo, Smooch and Sara into the Trails Course competition. While I was signing up, I was persuaded to enter other events as well. Might as well, the money goes to fund future shows and the horse club. So I signed Smooch up for the Junior Western Pleasure class, barrels, and poles. Western Pleasure is basically riding the rail, in both directions, at walk, jog, and lope. You are judged on your equitation and how smoothly the horse does his work (I guess....I'm not much into showing so I don't know much about such matters). Anyway, the Junior class is for horses 5 years old and under. Our first class wasn't until after lunch break, so I hopped on Smooch (he as already sacked out and saddled) and warmed him up. Incidentally, I tried backing him up and he did it with a vengeance (apparently he retained what he learned three days earlier). So I spent a few minutes "unbacking" him up because he would only go in reverse for a while.
The competition, the Junior Western Pleasure was nerve wracking....they always are for us competitive types. The first half went relatively well. He walked, he jogged, and he loped a little for me. I was wondering how that was going to go because we haven't worked on our leads or even our transitions for that matter. And then they changed our direction and I think I misheard lope for jog and I started loping him (or trying to, it wasn't pretty) when I think I was supposed to be trotting. And I couldn't hold him to the rail. It was a disaster. But at least we got our green ribbon, 6th place out of 6 contestants! Well, we were the youngest horse and least experienced rider there....
Then onto the trail course which went better than I had hoped. There were two potential trouble spots, one where you had to get them loping in a short distance and then stop, and another where you had to side pass with a pole between their legs up to a mailbox and then side pass back. The trouble started from the beginning when he wouldn't let me on. I was given a warning by the judges and promptly mounted him while he was trying to escape me. It wasn't pretty, but after I was on he was on fire. He pretty much did everything including one part where you had to ride up to a barrel, pick up a rain slicker that was laying on top of it, ride around a junk pile back to the barrel and put the rain slicker back on the barrel. I couldn't believe he did it. I let him take his time walking up to the barrel and slicker sniffing them out, at which point he tried to pick it up himself. I snatched it out of his mouth, put it on the saddle in front of me, rode around the junk pile, placed the slicker back on the barrel. And he did it as if he'd done it a dozen times before. He even backed up through the "L", something we hadn't worked on before (if you can imagine the difficulty of backing a horse, and turning him at the same time...it's akin to backing up a trailer, it takes practice, skill, and patience). Then it was over the bridge with no problems, stop on the other side and acknowledge the judges, and then into a lope for about 20 or 30 yards. Which he actually did after a few trotting steps. Stop at a tire, turn to the left on his haunches (which he did), over some poles and stop before backing up five steps (which he did again with a vengeance). The next step, side passing, I decided to skip altogether because we really hadn't worked hard on it yet (too bad I didn't have an extra day to work with him because I'm sure I can get him side passing in a day). I just walked him straight up to the mailbox, opened it, shut it, and actually got a few side pass steps back the other way before I felt him tightening up, so I just moved on ahead, over the tarp to the rope gate which was the end of the course. I have no idea how we did in the competition. Probably not that great. I don't even know if we got DQ's for not trying to side pass.
Sara was next, but I remembered I had never side passed her before. So I took her over to a field to practice and found I had a battle on my hands. By the time I got her side passing, we were both worn out and I was running late for a mounted patrol assignment. So I missed Sara and Amigo's Trail Competition, and I missed barrels and poles on Smooch. Oh well, next time I guess...