2nd Show in the Books

Walk Trot Reserve Champions!

Another great weekend of showing! Each one of us in our group got either High Point or Reserve High Point in a division - go us! LOL

Ben was great- he's such a steady guy this year. Well, except in Showmanship, during which I was wanting to strangle him. He was fine for the warm up - the practicing went really well too. The pattern was easy. But of course he turned into a complete Fidget. Chomp chomp chomp on the bit, swinging his hind quarters both during his inspection and also in line. So so naughty - and he totally knows better.

But he quickly redeemed himself undersaddle, winning a blue in our first Eq class - never thought I'd win a 1st place in an equitation class on this horse, LOL. But then our second Eq class I completely blew - I own it, and I laugh about it. I'm not sure where I was exactly, but it wasn't at the horse show, and definitely was not paying attention. We were asked to halt - which we did. Then change direction- which we did a great turn on the haunch....and instead of staying halted, I just walked on like I was doing the right thing. Haha, and then I realize what a do-do head I was, and halted...right when they asked for the riders to walk on. Fabulous. So out of 7 I got 4th. Next time I'll be awake and pay attention.

Then our next class I performed my second dumb move of the day and screwed up our advanced Eq pattern, haha - for no apparent reason other than me being really out of it. Apparently I needed more caffeine or something.

But from there on out- we nailed our WT pleasure classes with 2 first places, out of 8 riders in the open class!

And unlike the last show where we ran out of energy, I felt like we had enough to continue on with the next 2: Advanced W/T Pleasure and WTC for WT Open. Ben had enough juice, sorta, to do the classes, but didn't really have enough energy to do the tasks requested of him- like extended and collected trot. He put his all out there for extended trot, but then couldn't bring it back, which has always been his trouble spot. But I was proud of him for getting to where we could actually make it into the class! We pulled a 3rd out of 3.  And then our final class we did place 1st out of 2. His canter was crappy, lacking in just about everything - but his transitions were good and the other gal picked up the wrong lead. He was pretty pooped by then, but again, glad we were able to do it rather than scratch.

I did end up scratching the Trails class- which we were supposed to do after our morning of English classes. Ben was legitimately tired, and I just didn't want to set us up to have an argument should he decide something in the trails course was scary. So i decided to end on a good note and appreciate all I got out of him.

It wasn't enough for High Point this time around, but we still managed to get Reserve Champion. And we continue to get a ton of compliments - this time a sea of little girls came up to us and asked me what breed he was. So I got to talk to them about Standardbreds - and they all said "He's soooooo beautiful, I would love to have him!" In a sea of paint/qh/mustang/arabs, Ben sure stands out. I think he really likes the attention- I can feel him turn it on and up in the show ring. Maybe I have a budding Show Diva on my hands!