In Other News...

Well, now that I've gotten those posts out of the way, on to 2010! This year is going to kick some serious booty, I just know it! 2009...well, it just kinda sucked, to be quite honest. Maybe it's just because it went out on such a sour note, I'm not really sure. It wasn't the greatest year, so I'm glad to be done with it and getting a fresh start in a new year. Decade even!

We started off the year riding our ponies. Doesn't get any better then that, does it? I was careful and used my "best judgement", but I rode. I got off regularly to check and make sure her guts weren't falling out (the exercise wasn't bothering her incision), since she had just gotten her stitches out and all, but it did just fine. We loped and she was enjoying herself, so I decided she would probably be just fine for the show over the weekend.

My goal for the first show of the year had been to finally, finally get our flying lead changes in our pattern. I was a little skeptical though. We hadn't had any lessons since the last show because of her lameness and surgery. The day before the show was the first real ride I had been able to have on her since the previous show more then a month ago. Yikes. While warming up I asked for lead changes and she did them with just a swish of the tail. I couldn't believe it. The pattern had changed for this show, the first time in years at the series, so I was ready to have some problems with Midori thinking she knew the pattern. And I did. She just knew that after 2 large fast and one small slow circle to the right, we were supposed to change leads and do those circles to the left. Unfortunately in pattern number 4 you stop and do 4 spins to the right after the circles. She was not about to stop. We had already changed leads (simple, as we had always done before) and were heading into the next circle, battling it out before she finally stopped. Damn. There went our score. Oh well. I finished the pattern nailing both of our flying lead changes. WOHOO!!! She was all sorts of confused when we walked out of there. That was certainly not the pattern she was trying to do! I was thrilled just for the fact that we got our flying lead changes. As you may remember, they've been a pretty major battle for us the whole time we've been together. We had a little "school the naughty pony" time, but for the most part I was pretty darn satisfied with the class, even though we didn't get a score.

The boyfriend won his beginner reining class, had a fabulous run, and then two handed his bratty pony in our rookie reining class, getting him a no score as well. It was still a good day. I was just so happy to be back on my horse!

Our lessons are going well. What few I've had. I did take a couple lessons on Sugar while Midori was out of commission. That was fun and a great learning experience. She is in a bridle so I had to ride one handed, which is always a challenge for me. It was good though, helped me relax a bit. We have been talking about getting a new horse for me because we're totally diggin' the reining thing and would like to get into it a little more. Midori isn't much of a reiner, so if I want to really get into reining, I'll need a different horse. Midori will still be my dink around with everything else horse, I still plan to do some cutting and rail shows, I'd like to do sorting again, stuff like that. Don't have a whole lot of cash floating around to put into a horse right now though, so that may have to wait a while.

We've got some ambitious plans for 2010. I'm hoping this will really be the year that we get our barn situated. And our arena. I won't hold my breath though. Of course there are the requisite pay off debt, save-save-save, get on the blasted tread mill and get in better shape, get organized, etc. resolutions that are always around. And plenty of house and yard projects that we'd like to tackle as well.

So here's to 2010! I hope you kick 2009's ass!

Boot Camp, Shows and Mister

Midori and I have been working hard continuing with boot camp. Since the last post I have tried a few new things, one of them being switching bits to what I affectionately call my Miracle Bit. It's a gag bit and it's fabulous! Midori is almost soft in it! I'm not playing tug-o-war with her any more! She is way better and any time she thinks about hanging on the bit I can just bump her right off of it, though it does bother me wondering what made her so hard in the first place. I've always thought I had pretty soft/light hands. Regardless, it makes the lead changes so much easier! And of course as soon as we got her head under control other issues that were hindering our progress popped right out, which made it easier to understand why we were having so much trouble. Amazing how that works! Now that I know about those issues, we have been working on them and things are really coming along. Our lead changes still aren't pretty but atleast left to right they are consistant. Right to left, they are still a challenge, but she'll atleast DO them and even in a mostly collected manner (for us anyways).


So our lead changes are getting better. Still have a loooooong ways to go, but we are getting them. YAY! Our spins are looking more like very slow motion spins instead of watching and going, WTF are you trying to do?!? lol Our stops come and go, but I'm not sure that she'll ever slide. Our rating and circles are decent, we don't work on those much. She's spent the last 5 years rating and running in circles in drill, so that's not a concern for us at this point.

It's very exciting to feel that progress is being made! Unfortunately due to illnesses and scheduling conflicts we have ended up with a couple week break in lessons and riding for the most part. The ponies have all been a bit under the weather for the last week or so, recovering from a day or two of major runs, and with 2-3 shows coming up this month, I wanted to make sure they got a break and were 100% all better before we worked them too hard. Midori especially dropped a bunch of weight in a matter of days, but never got dehydrated or ran a fever and didn't look anything more then unhappy about her circumstances. I got them on Fasttrack and electrolytes to help their guts and make sure they didn't get dehydrated, but other then that I couldn't find much else that I could do for them. Sugar and Mister seem to have gotten over it just fine, but Midori is still not 100%. She was the only one that was ridden hard as she was getting sick and I wonder how much that has to do with it. I'm hoping she gets back to 100% this week! We've got our next show this coming weekend and I need to get a couple rides on her before then! We should still be able to take it pretty easy though, it's just one reining pattern and I don't think a lack of warm up time will be what hurts us. lol

There are two of the winter series shows this month and then we skip December. There is also another show at the arena that has a schooling reining pattern that we are thinking about going to. Practice is always good! They also have a trail class, which I really like so I might have to do that one too. Also happening this coming weekend is the awards/year end banquet for our cutting club. I'm looking forward to finding out if I get a buckle for my second place finish in that series!

In other news, I've gotten a few rides on Mister. We started with a new shoer who is aggressively correcting his club foot. The previous shoer was simply maintaining it and Mister had been pretty much chronically lame with abscess after abscess for most of the past 6-8 months. He's been mostly sound with this new shoer. Very exciting! From so much time off and so many issues though his shoulder was extremely atrophied so we spent a lot of time ponying him around or hand walking and light lunging to build his muscle back up. Other then some soreness, he's been just fine and in the last month or so I decided he looked ready to carry my butt around a bit. I've gotten 3 rides on him, even getting up to loping both directions. He is still, of course, very green, but seems much more confident packing a person around then he did last time I was riding him. He has been such a good boy! Last time I was on him the arena was pretty busy so I didn't want to push him with loping. He took everything going on around him in stride and stayed focused on what I was asking him to do, but instead of loping I decided to work on moving off my legs: sidepassing and pivoting on his haunches and forehand. He's very sticky with moving his shoulders or hips, though he seems to understand moving off my legs while I'm riding. He'll try to shape away from my leg or move over the direction I ask while he's going forward. It was a completely new concept for him when standing still, but after he got those wheels turning, he seemed to pick it up pretty quickly, I was pleased. I'm hoping to get some more time on him soon, but he was sick too and does still have some issues with lameness, so I don't want to push him too hard.

We had a wonderful day outside yesterday enjoying the sunshine and possibly the last of the nice weather. I only had one long sleeve thermal shirt on with my puffy vest! The ponies enjoyed some attention and a little TLC. I'm sure they appreciated having clean butts and tails, even though the water was cold. :) We got another paddock up for the boyfriends sister's horse that we are boarding and that freed up the arena-to-be area and got us motivated to have more sand brought in so we can atleast get the round pen up with some good footing. It would be really nice to have that available for turn out this winter and so that we have some where to atleast get the ponies some exercise on nice days, even if it's not great for getting any real work done with them.

Lots of work to be done, as always. And of course not enough hours in the day, but we'll get there! Atleast there is progress being made on many different fronts!

Hope you all are enjoying fall!

Winter Series and Boot Camp

Well, we started the Winter Series this past weekend. We did the Winter Series last year which is where I won my buckle. I won the Beginner Reining class which meant that I also got kicked up to the next class this year which has a real reining pattern and requires flying lead changes. I'm not really ready for the next class, but oh well. I've started lessons and I'm determined to be competitive in it by the end of the series. We are making progress on our flying lead changes, but they are still rough and very inconsistent. We still do not spin. Midori's head is still up in the air, she is not soft or light right now. We have a LOT of work to do, but we are making progress. I just have to keep reminding myself of that since I am having a hard time not getting discouraged and frustrated.


The boyfriend and Sugar are coming along fabulously with their lessons. Sug was a futurity flunkie and came to us as a 3 year old fairly broke reiner, though slightly neurotic. Sug knew way more then we did and we have since done a fantastic job of totally screwing her up. It isn't taking much for Sug's training to come back to her though. She is already back to doing beautiful flying lead changes, trying to slide when she stops, even though she doesn't have sliders on right now, and loping very nice circles framed up. They are improving in leaps and bounds, while I'm still struggling with flying lead changes and playing tug-o-war with my horse while she goes mach 5 around the arena refusing to change leads. It's hard not to get frustrated. I want a broke horse. I haven't had a broke horse since I was 12 or so and was riding my mom's QH Jingles. I'm pretty sure she was broke, even by my standards today. Every horse that I've had since then I've had to train to do what I wanted. Usually I enjoy it, I think I'd get bored just hopping on a finished horse all the time, but sometimes it just gets frustrating having to be patient and appreciate the baby steps.


After a particularly gruelling and unproductive lead changing attempt last week I was seriously writing up a sale ad for my horse, wondering how much I could get out of her and if it would be enough to buy a more broke reiner. One that at least did flying lead changes. Yes, I do have quite the hang up on flying lead changes. I have struggled with them ever since I've had Midori, they have always been an issue for us and they are the only goal I have repeatedly failed to accomplish with her.


We had another lesson together on Friday (me/Midori and the boyfriend/Sug) and once again I sneered at the boyfriend and Sug the whole time. They are such showoffs! Since it was the night before the show Midori and I didn't even attempt flying lead changes. We didn't want to start that battle and blow our mojo for the show. We still managed to get in a pretty good brawl over sidepassing. Sidepassing!!! She has always been good at that, it's practically second nature to her. She was being pissy and ended up throwing a major tantrum, which I just had to laugh at. Really it was pretty darn comical. When she finally got over it, we went back to work and the rest of the lesson went just fine. She was still a little bent out of shape when I was untacking her though. Mares! lol


The reining was Saturday morning and all I wanted was to complete the pattern correctly and as respectably as I could. I knew I was going into it with 4 penalty points already since we were going to do simple lead changes, but I figured we could at least do the pattern clean. And we did. I had a moment of panic wondering if I did 4 spins or had stopped early at 3, but I had counted right. Yay! They weren't pretty at all, actually they felt absolutely horrific, but we did them. I felt pretty good about the rest of our pattern, it was a respectable pattern for where we are at. That was all I asked of the day so mission accomplished.


There were 8 people in our class and when they announced the placings, usually from 3rd up, they only announced 2nd and a tie for 1st. I was 2nd. The boyfriend tied for 1st. What the heck?!? I couldn't believe I had 2nd place! We ran over to look at the score sheet and found that out of 8 people in the class 5 had gone off pattern and gotten zero's. Oops! My score was not good, I got a 62 1/2, but I was only 1 point behind the first place tie. They both did flying lead changes, so considering I had 4 penalty points for that and was still only 1 point behind them I was very pleased with our pattern!


I made sure our pattern was video'd so that I can (in theory) look back on it down the road and see how much progress I've made. I've decided to post it here, for your viewing displeasure. Feel free to skip the first minute or so, in fact, I highly recommend it. Seriously, our "spins" are worse then watching paint dry. They are baaaaad. And try to ignore the jibberjabbering. I couldn't think of a good song to put over it.






Overall it was a fun day, Midori behaved herself and didn't get pissy. We did turn back for a little bit while the boyfriend was cutting in the afternoon. That was fun! I've never done turn back before and Midori seemed to be totally diggin it. We have our next lesson tonight and a month to the next show so plenty of time for some major schooling without blowing our mojo. I'm still planning to be doing simple lead changes at the shows for probably the rest of this year. Yes, that is how bad we are. I'm going to shoot for having consistent, solid lead changes by the first of the year for the rest of the shows. Wish us luck!

It's okay...I have a buckle!

Oh ya, you heard right...your's truly has a buckle! I won it fair and square and I'm freakin excited!

I had a few different ideas for titles of this post. The first one I was thinking was The Tortoise and the Hare. It seemed appropriate leading up to this last show if I did happen to get the buckle. While I had won the class once, most of the reason I got the buckle was because I came to every single show, even though I didn't receive any points for the first no score I got. I was the slow and steady, middle of the pack wins the race. Well, this morning I had a pretty good run and I won the class! That makes two first places, a second and some other decent placings that I don't remember. So I feel a little more like I really deserved that buckle and maybe wasn't the slow and steady. Maybe there was some skills involved. Maybe.

Another title I was debating was It Was a Good Day. For obvious reasons. It really was a good day.

I decided on the current title because all day, anything bad or boring or just not great that happened, I would turn around, whip out my buckle and say, "It's okay, I have a buckle!" I was stuck in traffic...It's okay, I have a buckle! Whip it out, admire it at a stoplight. Headed to work on a Saturday, It's okay, I have a buckle! Realize someone forgot to do something important before leaving work yesterday...It's okay, I have a buckle! You get the point. Everything is okay because I'm so stinking excited that I won the buckle!

This is my favorite part...

See that? It says REINING CHAMPION. Me. Reining Champion.

And yes, it was a Beginner class at a small, very casual, very small, very casual winter reining series. Did I mention it was small and casual? It was very small and very casual.

But...I HAVE A BUCKLE!

I do have to thank C.C. Dozing and Mike Crandall for sponsoring the series. They totally rock! They support a lot of events and get us some beeeeautiful buckles! Which I can tell you now from personal experience. Did I mention I have a buckle? *grins*

Oh, and the boyfriend got second in the series. He got a really nice set of reins. They are even light oil so they match his saddle. Maybe now he'll quit stealing mine. He did so awesome! I'm so proud of him. He rocks!!!

What a weekend!

Wow. I'm exhausted. I think it's going to take me the entire week to recover from my weekend! Once again, I'm feeling every one of my 27 years and realizing that I just can't party like I used to. It's sad. We didn't even party like we used to, not at all, but I'm still totally beat. I guess we also used to be able to sleep in til noon after staying out late, but I suppose that's another fun part of getting old...you just can't sleep in any more! Not that we had much of a choice this weekend since it was a winter series weekend.

Our weekend included a bon fire party (well, really a small, totally reasonable recreational fire, since "bon fires" are not legal), the reining show, cleaning paddocks and putting down new hogs fuel for the ponies, clipping horses, washing dirty horse tails, working the butt head (Mister) on the ground, a bachelor party (the boyfriend), a movie night with mom and meeting two of the most adorable corgi puppies on the planet (me, while waiting out the bach party as the boyfriends DD), numbering cows for sorting (the boyfriend, while I tried in vain to sleep in), sorting and drill practice. I also managed to squeeze in some laundry and kitchen cleaning, but no picture loading or blogging for me! Whew, just typing all that makes me want to take a nap. It was a busy weekend.

It was also a totally gorgeous and sunny 60 degrees during the day this weekend and I tried to soak up every bit of it that I could.

Anyways, on to my usual winter series updates. Unfortunately it was a pretty unspectacular weekend. Well, except for the boyfriends absolutely beautiful reining pattern! I wish I could have video'd it for him, as well as his first one of the series. It's amazing to see how much he's improved! I somehow, miraculously, managed to stay on my pattern, though I'm pretty sure it was only because Midori knows it and was on auto-pilot. I had no control. It was all I could do to get her to slow down enough to change leads. She was a naughty, naughty pony. The boyfriend ended up getting 3rd out of 8 riders and I got 4th. There was a rather large gap in the scores between us, but that was the way the placings fell. So now there is one show left and the points for the buckle are pretty darn close. The next show is going to be a nail biter and I'm probably going to fold under pressure. Pressure at horse shows doesn't usually work in my favor. Should be interesting.

Sorting didn't go so hot either. The boyfriend and I got a no time on our run. I did get 6 cows on a couple of my runs, but so far that is where I'm topping out. Midori seemed to be having fun though so that was good. It wasn't a bad day, but the late night Saturday was taking it's toll on us. Neither of us placed with any of our runs so we didn't win any money and it was an expensive day. Still mostly fun, but expensive.

After sorting I had to stick around for drill practice too. The sorting ended up going late so drill practice got started really late and went even later. It was a pretty fun practice though and Midori and I found our second wind. She was tired enough from the weekend that she behaved herself, which was fabulous, but still had plenty of go left to haul ass on the outside of a crack.

I was totally beat by the time I got home. I think Midori has earned a day or two off, I'm sure she's pretty sore too! My butt just wasn't ready for an almost straight 7 hours in the saddle yesterday. And while the majority of it was spent sitting around waiting for our turn sorting, plenty of it was spent riding hard. I started the day off sore from Saturday too since I had ridden hard for quite a while after our no control pattern.

All in all it was a good weekend. The weather was fabulous and I won't ever complain about a weekend spent with my pony. I'm just exhausted and looking forward to some quality time with the couch and my bed this week.

Deju vu...sorta

Not to brag or anything (because you know I would never do anything like that), but for the second show in a row, the boyfriend and I came home with 1st and 2nd place in the beginning reining class. We were pretty darn surprised! Not only because this time there wasn't snow and ice on the ground keeping a lot of people home so we actually had a class of 9 people, but also because the 1st place isn't mine, it's the boyfriend's. It's the first time he's ever beat me.

Honestly, I was pretty darn proud of him! I'm not just saying that to sound like a gracious loser either. He did really good! He had a really good pattern and deserved it. I am really happy for him! I watched him from the in gate and when he finished I was hooting and hollering at him, totally embarrassed him. hehe He got his lead changes, he had nice circles, he had a good stop and back, the whole thing was a vast improvement over some of their other patterns. Especially considering he hadn't ridden Sugar at all since the last show, 4 weeks ago. And he was a little tipsy.

He wasn't even going to come to the show since he hadn't ridden at all, but I dared him to do it with some whiskey in him, mostly so he'd just relax and not fight with his horse, and he won't ever turn down a dare that involves whiskey. :-) So he had whiskey for breakfast and was all relaxed when he went in. Probably started a bad trend there, but it was still really funny that he won.

I will say that we were both pretty shocked when we heard his name for 1st place though. We were walking up to the office when they announced the top 3 placings. They said my name for 2nd and I was happy about that, but certainly would have liked 1st. I felt like I had a really good pattern, but I was first to go in the class so I wasn't holding my breath. Then they sort of paused and said 1st place, paused again and said the boyfriends name. We both looked at eachother and went, huh?!? No way! Then I slugged him in the shoulder and said "you beat me! I can't believe you beat me!" We got into the office and asked the lady if we had really just heard that right and she grinned really big.

So we got our ribbons, our jackpots and the boyfriend got to pick out his crystal trophy. There were champagne flutes, little bowls, candle stick holders and bud vases, the usual assortment of little crystal things and then there was a whiskey bottle. Nothing special, certainly not expensive, but it was a whiskey bottle so the boyfriend grabbed that, saying it was just too appropriate. Then the whole rest of the day he just kept saying, I can't believe I won! hehe It was great!

Since it was such a big class and the people that were at the top of the standings for the series weren't there again, we might actually be leading the standings now. Or atleast close to it. I need to go check that out today. Who'da thunk?!?

So off to sorting this afternoon. Wish us luck!

We cleaned up!

This weekend the boyfriend and I went to another reining show in the winter series that we're participating in. We're both doing the beginner reining class and so far this series we are pretty much stuck in the middle of the pack. We had debated even continuing with the reining since the sorting is way more fun, but decided that since we started it and it's a pretty inexpensive class we may as well finish the series just for kicks.

This weekend in particular we were really debating going since we hadn't been able to ride much because of the weather. On top of that, the few oppurtunities that we did have to ride I had passed on because I was just burned out. I wanted to stay home and clean my house (yes, I do realize how crazy that sounds) and just relax instead of being outside freezing and riding. I was going thru some major pony withdrawals and would stick my nose in my horses neck any chance I got, but I just couldn't bring myself to actually ride.

The weather was still bad and the roads were a little icy since temps had dropped way lower then they had predicted over night, but we still braved the elements and headed out to the show. I went into it with the attitude that I really didn't care, I just wanted a good ride on my horse. I had ridden once in the past 3 weeks and that was just briefly so I wasn't expecting anything. Of course with the weather a lot of people decided to not chance it and stayed home so the show was tiny. There were only 4 people in the beginner class that usually has 8-10.

We got there extra early to have plenty of time to warm up and get their kinks out. Midori was being an angel. I didn't ask for much since I hadn't been on her in a while, but she did everything I asked. I think she was excited to be out. I even got a flying lead change out of her, though it wasn't pretty and sort of by accident. lol

The boyfriend went third and I went last in the class. I didn't watch the first two, but the boyfriends pattern was much improved over what he had been doing. I was really happy to see that. I felt pretty good about my pattern, in relation to my other patterns. We got our leads, our "spins" weren't any worse then they usually are, the stop was good and she backed nicely. She launched into the big fast circles. I was afraid I wasn't going to get her back to slow down for the small circles, but she did. I think she knows the pattern, even though I never do it except at shows. Brat.

Since it was so freaking cold we put them away as soon as they were cooled out after the class. While we were at the trailer untacking we heard placings for our class. The boyfriend got 2nd and I got 1st. We wohoo'd and high fived eachother and laughed. We rocked that show! But only because everyone who usually beats us were too chicken to come out. Oh well, I'll take what I can get! Atleast I was happy with my pattern that I won with! We're both improving and that's all that matters. The ribbons and jackpot are just a bonus!

Success!

Well, improvement anyways. I got a score on Saturday, wohoo! And all my hard work while riding last week really paid off! I think improving is a good measure of success. Winning is always nice to, but for me right now, at the (very low) level that I'm at, improving is the name of the game. We definately improved! Besides me actually remembering the pattern, and thus earning a real score and placing, we really improved over our last ride! I was very, very pleased!

I decided my goals for this show were to improve our stop and back. Our circles, rating and lead changes were satisfactory for now, but our stop and back at the last show were just bad. Last week we did the flag clinic that got Midori rocking back over her hocks and using her butt a bit more when she stopped. I needed to translate that to rail work and doing that from just my seat, without the encouragement of the flag. My big goal now is to get her stopping and backing from just my seat and a little bit of leg. She used to have the stop, but for some reason, I'm more of a legs for gas and reins for steering and brakes rider whenI'm drilling. It drives me nuts. I work so hard on using my seat and legs and then when I'm focused on drill over the summer, it all goes to hell. I'm still not sure why I can't cross that bridge, to riding with my body and subtle cues, while I'm drilling. Also, Midori's reverse has always been a bit sticky, sometimes flat out refusing to back, always with her head in the air and always using my hands as the cue and legs for encouragement. No more! I'm changing my ways! When I sit on my pockets, my horse will plant her butt, stop and back until I sit up. I think that's the way it works anyways. I may need to double check Mug's blog and the multiple reining books that I have at home.

Friday when I rode that was pretty much all that I focused on, responding to my seat. I did go thru and do the whole rest of my usual riding routine, but my main focus for the entire ride was stopping from my seat and beginning to back up with some encouragement from my legs. We did a lot of stops, lots of backing, lots of roll backs. It was actually a really fun and productive ride. Midori is very smart and by the end of the ride she was backing, almost enthusiastically, from my seat and some leg. Her head was still in the air, but I think that will come when she really realizes I'm not going to be on her face the whole time I'm asking her to back.

Saturday when we got to the show, I could tell the difference when we warmed up. She was listening to every move I made, almost reading my mind at some points. She was so responsive and would just plant her butt as soon as I sat down. YES! Our run was good. Not fabulous, but way better then last time. I did get a little nervous again, which got Midori amped up so I had a bit of trouble getting her to rate for the first slow circle, but our lead changes were decent, we actually hit center on the circles, and our run down, stop and back were soooo much better! Unfortunately, I was so intent on getting the stop and back done right that I ended up running down the wall, instead of staying off of it. That cost me. Oh well, I really didn't care! We improved so much over our last run, that was all that mattered to me! Ok, almost all that mattered to me. I should admit that I was a teeny tiny bit disappointed that we didn't place higher, but it was still a good run! We ended up getting 4th out of 8. There was a lot more competition there this time.

It was a good show and a good weekend.

Goals for the next show:
1. Continue to work on stopping and backing
2. Find some way to relax before I go in!
3. Get to work on moving her hips! Her hips seem to be her stickiest body part for me to move right now. Probably why I can't ever get her to do a flying lead change. Or atleast that'll be my excuse for now.

I hate it when I'm a dumba$$

Last weekend was my first experience with a reining pattern. There is a small winter series at a local club that we belong to that we have decided to participate in. I am doing the Beginner class, which is a very simple pattern that you can ride one or two handed and is the only class in the series in which a simple lead change is acceptable. For some reason, even after drilling together for 3 years, Midori and I still cannot do a flying lead change. We do some great simples, but no flies. Even watching her run around in the pasture, she'll either stay on the wrong lead or break down and do a simple. No flies. I guess that makes me feel a little better. On top of me not really knowing how to teach her to do a fly, she is lacking natural ability in the area. So basically, we are just screwed for now. Until I can find a trainer that I like to help me. Or read thru Mugwump's instructions more carefully and really put them to work. I'm generally better at learning by doing and having someone catch me when I'm not doing it correctly though.

Last Saturday was the first show of the series. I got up early and loaded Midori up to head to over there. I was on my own for this one as it was opening weekend of rifle hunting and the BF had to go try to kill Bambi. The beginner class was the first of the morning so the parking lot was pretty empty when I arrived. I had made sure my tack and boots were clean the night before and clipped Midori up earlier in the week. I got there early enough to wash her tail and one white sock and make sure she was somewhat presentable in all of her already fuzzy for winter despite being blanketed glory.

I rarely get performance anxiety as I have shown horses in one way or another for years, but for some reason this show was giving me the jitters. I guess I usually have a friend or cohort with me at shows that helps to distract me. This one, I only knew a couple of people and they were busy with their own things. So between that and it being my first "reining show" and the fact that I was going to be one-on-one with the judge instead of with my team or the rest of a performance/rail class, I was getting more nervous then I had been in a while. My nervousness of course translated to Midori and she was getting all amped up and blowing thru things. Finally they get the show started (a little late) and I'm second up. I watch the first run and it's not bad. For a beginner. At a small, very casual and laid back reining show. Certainly nothing to brag about in the reining world, but that's the reason I'm here.

As she finishes up, the gate is opened and it's my turn to enter. We walk around to face the judge. At this point I'm taking all the deep breaths that I can and actually calming down. I found it funny that I was all nervous before hand, but as soon as I walked in the gate I was fine. The pattern was so easy that I wasn't even running thru it in my head. It was beyond easy. I rode harder patterns when I was in 4-H. I had this one! The only part I had worried about at all was the right "spin" first. For some reason I have a habit (a bad one, I know) to turn left first. We get the nod from the judge and I start turning. Left. Dammit!!! I got 2 steps into it and when awww SH**!!!

I finished the rest of the pattern the best that I could. Our big fast circles were big and fast, thanks to drill and Midori being amped up. We took one more stride then I would have liked for the first simple lead change, but totally nailed the second one. We had a good change of rate for the small slow circles. The run down was alright but the stop was...just...bad. She practically fell on her face. Ugh! The back wasn't so pretty either, but it wasn't the worst we've done. I walked out decently pleased with our run, other then the stop. I KNOW she can stop better then that. I figured it was our first try and we're in the beginner class for a reason. Yes, even a reason other then the simple lead changes.

Unfortunately since I'm a dumba$$ and turned the wrong way that got us a No Score. But I looked at the score sheet and we still had pretty good marks, compared to the rest of the class. Granted it was only 4 people. I was happy with our "score", given that we would have won the class had I not been a dumba$$. Hopefully I can continue to be competitive and not have any more serious brain farts for the rest of the series! I also know now what we need to work on to improve and what I can expect going into the next show. It is a lot more laid back and casual then I expected and definately a fun and friendly atmosphere. I think it's a great way to get my toes wet in the reining world, even if my skills as a reiner are pretty much just a joke. It's fun, relatively inexpensive, a great way to get me on my horse for more then just drill and gives me something to work towards with her.