Horse Shows!

I’ve now done two rated horse shows with Ernie, one on property and one away show last weekend. Below is a recap of each show.

HR Show

First up was the home show that was the second weekend of July. In an effort to push myself out of my comfort zone a bit and do some things I’ve wanted to do, I chose to show in the thoroughbred hunters and do the thoroughbred classic which both went in the grass show ring. I also decided to not only do the low equitation (2’6″), but to also do the limit equitation (2’9″). I hadn’t shown on the grass or at a height above 2’6″ in about ten years. Leading up to the show it was very hot and I was working a fair amount with the fun July 15th tax deadline I mentioned before. The show was actually a B, C, and pony show and showing was Thursday through Sunday.

Show schooling would have been Wednesday, but work was crazy so I decided to do Thursday. Thursday night however it ended up being disgustingly hot and humid and my trainer had to go pick up her kids just after 7 so we scrapped that and I flatted. I had figured out I would miss my TB hunter classes on Friday based on the schedule so I planned to just school Friday. In the end there were storms Friday that moved my Friday classes to Saturday anyway. At the same time though, the rain turned the sand ring into slush and the grass ring into wet grass which freaked me out a bit.

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I wanted to flat anyway, so I got on and went in the grass ring and it wasn’t too bad. We ended up jumping four fences and calling that good. I was a bit nervous Saturday going into the rings pretty cold but Ernie never missed a beat and trucked right around in the slushy sand and the grass without any issues. By Sunday the sand ring was back to being super dry after baking in the sun which was nice.

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I was super excited to win my first class of the weekend, the low adult equitation over fences, out of 15 people! We also got 2nd out of 8 in our limit adult equitation over fences (video above). Ernie was tense about the downward transition to trot from canter in my equitation flat classes so that was a bit of a struggle for us. In the thoroughbred hunters I was a bit indecisive in one of my classes which led to a pretty good flier long spot, lol. The fence in question was crooked and I pretty much just stared at it until a few strides out contemplating its crookedness before deciding I had no distance. Oops! We did get a 4th and 7th out of 14 in two of our over fences (didn’t place in the flier round) and got 5th in the flat out of 10. I was super happy with how we did!

Meadowview Show

Last weekend Ernie and I did our first away show together. We went up Thursday and after setting up we schooled. I was pretty intimidated by the fences, which had big boxes in front of them. Quite a few horses were spooking at them – jumping them big or refusing. Ernie however was quite chill and we jumped around without an issue besides some meh riding on my part. Since Ernie was so good I just flatted him around in a schooling ring on Friday.

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I was so excited that the show was less than an hour from where Sarah (Draft Mare) lives and she was able to come to the show and hang out, video, and give Ernie his after class cookies. We don’t get to see each other too often, but it’s so fun when we do!

Saturday I had my 2’9″ equitation up first and Ernie was great besides being a little distracted by hay trailers moving all around in the fields at the facility. Those classes were small, but we got 2nd in our equitation over fences and won the limit medal (video below). Later in the day I had my low equitation where we won both the equitation over fences and the low medal. We also did one low adult hunter trip.

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Sunday I just had two hunter rounds and the flat. We won one of the hunter trips and got 2nd in the other then got 3rd in the flat.

Overall it was a great experience and Ernie really showed how awesome he is. No lunging and no warm up classes needed. He was happy to hang out in his stall or wander around and graze. He also figured out that if he nickers at me I give him cookies because it’s adorable, lol. The indoor stalls were quite hot and it was definitely rough wearing a face mask all weekend all the time.

Now we have a bit of a break to work on a few things before our final show of the season.