Pony show 4/18/10

Well, first of all, let's not get crazy here.....it was just a schooling show.........but she was soooooooo gooooooooood. So was Spirit....sort of. Last night Spirit went ALL right brain crazy when I was clipping him.....because all the other horses were on the other side of the house. It carried over to today. BUT, my son did a wonderfully savvy job and he got FIRST place in his showmanship class! Now I have to admit....he was the only kid in the class with a right brained horse.....but the judge must have saw his savvy and rewarded him with first. I had him thank the judge and she told him he did a good job. The next biggest highlight was how well he did in halter obstacle. I really didn't think that Spirit would jump the jumps but he did....brilliantly, he went over the tarp, did a fig 8 with plastic bags filled with cans on his bag....jumped the pedestal instead of walking on it, went under the piniata great AND.......AND.....on the ground tying.....he did not want to stand still and was walking around Jason while screaming to the other horses and Jason rubbed him until calm, dropped the lead rope and walked all the way around him....YEAH! I am a very proud mom right now for his level of savvy with a crazy horse, when Jason doesn't play with the horses. All in all, he left with a "ribbon" in every class, though a few were still last place. Lets face it, though we think him beautiful, he didn't have the prettiest head in the pretty head class! He is quite pleased with himself that he got one of each place 1-6.

As for Miyagi and Me, she felt all day that trotting was just too much work, and proceeded at a slow crawl EVERYWHERE! She saw fit to oblige me a few times in the show ring with a trot, but mostly felt like a side of beef. I played the 7 games with her in the small warm up area and she was good. And no, even though we entered, she did NOT have the prettiest head of the class either. We got 2nd place in obstacle though, I think it was that class. I just don't care about showing and honestly my brain is mush after the long day. I know we didn't place in a couple classes because they were bigger classes than ribbons and there were some very beautiful mini's there. But her shining moment was the obstacle class. The first obstacle was a "brick" wall, that I knew she wouldn't jump because of it's size. Instead though, she solved her own little puzzle....I taught her so well....she put a foot on top of it, winked at me and proceeded to pull it down and walk right across her new "bridge". She gave no hesitation at the tarp with a "waterfall" of shiny things next to it, was not happy with the bag-o-cans saddle but didn't let any one but me see her disapproval, walked over the bridge between the trees great......was perfect for the ground tying, right under the piniata....and the last obstacle was a small vertical pvc pipe jump, which at 12" was just too high for cute fatty, and she just knocked it down as she walked over it. I can't complain for sure, she had perfect manners all day, was even nice to Spirit all day. Guess it was her gift to him, seeing as she is a holy terror to him otherwise.

Jason, Spirit, Miyagi and Me, ended the day in liberty class. I nearly passed out keeping her at a gait other than a walk, and Jason did a stellar job catching his pony at the end of the briliant right brain gallop fest. He was the only kid to do Liberty, and for his first time he did good. Next time, he will do better of not giving his pony a phase 4 so many times when a cross eyed look would have sufficed! I refuse to use plastic bags like everyone else as it is just counter productive to what we do here, to "teach" our rescues to act like a fool when they see a plastic bag. Luckily me and miyagi survived our own coronaries, from running at our age and weight!

We took the scenic route home,and it was a wonderful drive. And for a couple of crabby mares, Rose and Snookie sure looked happy to see the short ends of thier herd again. But once they said hello, they split. Typical!

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