Weekend Fun

On Saturday we had our showing debut at a Fun show hosted by the facility I board at, and it was a lot of fun!

The ribbons pictured make it look better than it actually was. But it was a good leaning experience for both of us.

I know I should be an artist HAHA

The first class we did was Western Horsemanship, which consisted of a pattern and then riding on the rail. The pattern was fairly simple, and is clearly depicted to the left.

Walk to A
Jog to B
Stop at B and turn 360 degrees
Left lead lope circle back to B
Lead change, Right lead lope to C
Back 9 steps
90 degree turn and extended trot to rail.

It actually went pretty good for us, considering we have never actually attempted a pattern before. The interesting part of the class was when we had to walk/trot/lope on the rail. Even though it was already reaching high 80's the horses we all feeling a little spunky. lets just say there wasn't a single "pleasure" style lope in the group.

The start of a nice collection

The next class was Western Pleasure and consisted of only riding on the rail at a Walk/Jog/Extended Trot/Lope. Overall this class did go better for us although our initial lope departure was faster than necessary he did settle in and we actually had a nice collected lope.

Much to my surprise and delight we placed first in both classes.  

After the lunch break we did do both Poles and Barrels, We placed in Poles but took a no time in the barrels due to crossing the timer when we spooked at the second barrel.

All in all it was a fun Saturday and a good first show. We even received compliments from the Judge after our two morning classes. She said she could tell Notch was green, but he looked very good for where we were at with training.

There is another show coming up on Sept 12th that we will ride in as well and I'm looking forward to it.
.

Whats the Point??

So I stumbled upon the below video yesterday, and was very impressed with most of their performance. 

If I tried to do that trail course on Notch right now, we would probably look like a bull in a china shop. There would be ground poles kicked all over the place and cones rolling around, not to mention a refusal at the bridge, because we just don't like bridges that are not actually functional. Just a couple weeks ago Notch acted like me asking his to trot over ground poles was equivalent to me asking him to go over a 3 foot jump. But anyways I digress.

The one part I just don't understand with these Western classes is the broken lope. I know what there goal is, they want a nice slow lope that looks peaceful to ride. What they have ended up with is a "gait" that makes it appear that the back legs are broken and dragging behind the horse. Why can't they have a nice collected lope that actually looks comfortable for the horse too? It is this standard in the Western Pleasure based classes that will keep me from ever showing in those areas. 

So that is the end of my morning rant. Hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Stepping out of our comfort zone!

I am a very competitive person...and with that comes the fear of doing something poorly in front of other people. This has led me to shy away from the competing side of riding due to the fear of looking like a fool. Well this morning I decided to try and move past this "stage fright".

Notch and I will be taking part in a 4 week Team Sorting league. We will be working with a random partner to attempt to move 10 cows from one pen to another in numerical order in under 60 seconds. I have not done any cow work with Notch, but he did spend some time around cattle at his previous home.

So next Wednesday is our first night out, so stay tuned for an update!

Something tells me we're not going to look like this lol