First Show of the Season

Yesterday was my first show of the season and it went very well. Satin and I started with speed in the morning and were reserve champion! We were 2nd in barrels and poles with K winning 1st. Being 2nd to K and Smokey I basically consider a win since Satin is not as fast as Smokey and beat some horses she competed against before that have beaten us. We came 4th in keyhole because Satin and I had a miscommunication error. I planned to rollback her to the left and she decided she was going to rollback to the right causing me to almost come right out of the saddle. This cost us a little on time, but we still came in 4th, so it was okay. So we came in reserve and K came grand.

Then like four hours later after standing in the horrible heat all day with a mare in heat we had our pleasure division. In the future if the show day is that hot I will only do speed and then let Satin go home, but R and I wanted to see how she would be doing speed and pleasure in the same day with speed first so this was our test show. We pinned much better than I expected. By the time we got to the pleasure we were both hot, tired, etc, etc. Satin wanted nothing more than to get it over with and be done and I can't blame her. She was quicker than she should be in pleasure, but that is not unusual for her. She was as quick as she usually is when we go to the show for pleasure, which of course kills me because she jogs and lopes so beautifully at home. Anyway, the point is I don't think doing speed in the morning affected her for the pleasure. I think it was just the heat and all that.

All in all though we pinned better than I thought we would. The horsemanship pattern was not hard, but was set very tight and Satin was not giving me the sharp precise transitions she usually does. The judge we had is also a stickler on the patterns being perfect. If your horse takes a step backwards because he is antsy or something he considers that going of course. Anyway my pattern was a bit quick and sloppy so I was not very happy with it. Before the pinning was announced the judge came over and said that three out of the six of us had not done the pattern correctly and should be more careful when checking our patterns. I thought "Oh great that must mean me" Then they pinned the class and we got 2nd! Needless to say I was surprised but very happy.

In the pleasure class the judge's sheet somehow got marked wrong and only said walk - jog so he had us all walk - jog and then called us in to pin. Then the ring steward told him how we are supposed to lope and after they conferred a few minutes he sent us back out for the lope. I didn't even feel like he was looking at us that much as I had a lot of chances to correct and slow her, but in the end we pinned a 3rd! Then we went on to command which I was confident about since it is usually her strongest class due to her reining roots and the fact that it doesn't matter how slow you are. It unfortunately ended up being our worst class. The first thing the judge asked was lope then halt, which tends to get people out quickly because the horse will fidget and take a step or two. I practice this with Satin all the time because of that and what happens she gets antsy and moves and we pin 5th. The trail class, which is our other strong class, was our last class. By the time we hit that class Satin had had enough. She was rushing through the obstacles which makes her sloppy, but I was able to rein her in and make her take her time. As my old trainer used to say there is not time limit so stop and fix her and make her wait if you have to. She blasted off on the two parts of the pattern that required a lope and tried to canter the trot parts and trot some of the walk parts. When we went to the mailbox I set her up over the pole and she started sidepassing before I asked which was okay. We ended up pinning 2nd though which is what we usually pin since my friend J who competes us against has a been there done that WP horse that usually is grand for the division. So all in all I was pretty happy with that division.

Everyone else from the barn had a good day as well so Showtime came home hot and tired, but successful.