Freebie Horse Show

Yesterday Megan and I headed to Nebraska for a Free Horse Show. We love going down there to show. The people are so friendly and the comraderie is fantastic. Everyone tries to win, but still cheers everyone else on. People remembered us from the previous show we went to down there earlier this year, so we had lots of people to visit with.

I sorta talked Megan into showing Rip in all of the classes. I figured since it was a free show, this would be the perfect time to see what all the big, blue horse was comfortable doing. They did fantastic. Although, Rip does not have a "pleasure" horse headset, his gaits are consistent and cadenced. Mostly the goal was to see if she could get him to pick up the correct leads, that is about the only sticky spot we have encountered with him. But they got every lead, from a walk and a trot and placed 3rd in the pleasure class. They look so cute together.
I also asked Megan to enter the Reining class. She has never done reining, but her and Rip were on equal ground, neither had he. They did a super job and Megan was so excited about it, that she wants to continue to train Rip for that event. He's pretty natural...has great stops, backs like a dream and turns around really well. She even managed to get one flying lead change out of him. The other one will need some time to develop.

She went ahead and loped him around the poles again. He sure has nice end poles...
Obviously, he needs a lot of slow patterning, to get good at the weaving part, but he shows potential. Oh, the advantages of starting with a really, well-broke horse-LOL. They did good in barrels too. Megan managed to move Rip into a tighter pocket and he is "getting it".

It was hard to get home with the blue horse though-several people "volunteered" to let us load him on their trailers, if, by chance, we didn't have enough room in our trailer. That is such a huge compliment coming from people who already have some really nice horses tied to their trailers.

I took Moon and showed him. It was not as much fun for me. Moon was in a "mood" and getting him to do anything, much less very well, was difficult. I swear, that horse is moodier than any mare I have ever ridden. I had been pretty happy this year, because he hasn't showed "his other side" at all. I thought perhaps he had outgrown it. NOPE!!
I managed to coax him to a 4th in English Pleasure, but I was panting by the time the class was over. That was about as good as it got all day.

This show has a ranch horse pleasure class and I thought that Moon might do better in it, than the regular pleasure class. There were only a couple of obstacles and I didn't see any that should have been difficult for him. The bridge, no problem...
Dragging the log? Yea...He completely blew up about that. The second the guy handed me the rope, he blew sideways and there was no stopping him. Now, I am really irritated by this, because Moon has no fear of ropes. He has had pasture and arena roping done on him and does a really good job...He was just in a snit and decided to leave. He can count on me dragging lots of stuff on him now...
His rail work was a controlled wreck. Oh, he got his leads and stayed rated, but his head was up, his jaw was tight and you could just tell, he was POed! It was not a fun ride. See the big, black horse in front of me?
He won the class. This is Blackjack. He is 1/2 draft and is just a fantastic horse. He drug that log around the cones, at a trot, like he had nothing attached to him. His owner has another 1/2 draft that she is working with. His name is Frankenstein. That horse looks like he came straight out of a bucking string, but she just eases him around like its nothing. Super nice people too!!

Finally, it was time for the barrels. I decided I had had enough of Moon's crap and did what I usually never do(especially on Moon)...I used spurs! I was not taking a chance that he was going to blow all over this barrel pattern. Especially since he has been getting a little sloppy in his turns. He started to blow out first...
But I stuck him with a spur and he decided that it would be in his best interest to turn...and right now!! It definitely got his attention because he actually stayed in his turn and got directly to 2nd like he was supposed to...
He thought he was going to bow out on the backside of 2nd, so I stuck him with the other spur. He didn't like it one bit, but by god, he rolled over his hock and came out of 2nd like he was supposed to. He went into 3rd in good position and then...
Pilot Error!! Look at my body position! Crap!! Why do I keep dropping my shoulder?
I don't when I am running poles. See this is what I should have looked like...
Shoulder up and body up and balanced. I wished I could get all of this coming together at the same time.

But then I get to the other end of the pole pattern and I look like this again. It drives me crazy!!
I never have problems with my body position on the first barrel, why do I have so much problem down here on the poles?

Well, my honey is here for the weekend!! Yay!! It's our Frontier Days Rodeo weekend. I am not entered to run barrels. I didn't really feel that Moon and I was together enough to make a good showing with the entire town watching, so I chickened out. Maybe next year, we will be good enough to enter and not embarrass ourselves in front of the entire county-LOL.