Harvest show update

This years Harvest horse show at Amberlea was perhaps the best attended I have been to: the show barn was pretty much full, and the rings were going all day long. Thankfully the weather was decent, with the show not getting the rain we got at the barn on Sunday.

With all those horses, the parking lot was FULL of trailers, with people finding other places to park...yet people still decided to stop and unload their horses and tack at the barn entrance (keeping in mind there is no other way to get to the parking lot). If everyone did that, it would have taken over 6 hours to get everyone in and unloaded! I noticed that the rider's that unloaded at the entrance were all dressage riders...perhaps used to less populous shows? Or just a false feeling of self importance?

We managed to be lucky and our arrivals and departures were not blocked by these annoying people (Shawn stayed at the show, but I hauled Izzy back and forth).

Shawn and Laureen did awesome. Shawn seems to finally have learned to relax at shows, and Laureen has learned to keep riding under the eyes of the judge ;) Laureen was first in her first level test, and second and third at Training level, ending 1 percent away from being reserve champion of that division! Next step is to improve the leg yielding so that Shawn can get to First Level test two. It was useful I think that Laureen was able to watch some of those tests to see how other riders accomplish that leg yield...often by starting early, but the best ones were done by just preparing the horse correctly, and staying focused on the target.

Izzy and I had a less stellar show. Poor Izzy just does not like indoor arenas! For schooling she was quite concerned about the decorations in front of the judges box (hedge, red wagon, hedgehog, logs and dog), and of the poop bucket. By the time we showed she had accepted the red wagon, and the poop bucket was gone, but the open concession was more than she could handle...in particular the scraping of chairs! She did try, but I just could not get her to relax and use her back, so impossible to perform at that level. Although my scores were 10% worse than the last show despite moving forward in her training, I have to concede that she was much better in the arena than she was in the spring, so hopefully we can continue to see improvement.

(Shawn on the other hoof didn't bat an ear when there was a dog fight in the stands while she was showing...interestingly the person with the dogs was also someone that blocks the entrance unloading...)

So this winter I will be working on getting her more obedient and focused on ME rather than everything else. I have some ideas...and of course I am sure these ideas will carry over to lessons, so be prepared!

Karen