Virginia State 4-H Horse Show 2011

E and Pep had a good show also.  Just not a great show. 

 E has really put in a lot of time on Pep the last few weeks and has her in great shape.

 Showmanship has always been her nemesis.   Pep would never stand still inside Waldron arena.  She would stand for hours anywhere else but as soon as she got in here her feet just wouldn't stay still.  This time it was finally different.  She stood perfectly until the judge acknowledged her then did a beautiful pattern.  She even stood still for inspection.  Then came the problem, after the inspection there was to be a 90 degree turn then trot out of the ring.  Pep started to move sideways and E forgot the 90 degree turn and just sort of meandered away then trotted.  No call back for the finals but a definite improvement over past years.

 I missed E's first pleasure class because it was going on the exact same time as V's class in Waldron.  She placed 3rd in it,  Sr. rider western pleasure pony class.  Then came the trail preliminary.  Open and close a gate, perfect.

 Back through poles, perfect.  53 entries and she made it to the finals in the top 20.

 The trail finals included, spooky bridge, trot over poles, canter over poles, back around cones inside a box, spooky gate, walk over poles and 360 turn inside box.  Pep did all the obstacles but hit a cone, bumped the gate clicked her feet on lots of poles and stepped out of the box.  Still, 12th out of a total class of 53.  Not bad for her first year in the Sr. division.

 E and Pep had some difficulties in their patterns, sometimes Pep's fault sometimes E's fault.  She ended up with 6th out of 10 in horsemanship and not placing in Working Western.  She was 3rd again in Western Pleasure 2nd go which qualified her for the championship class.

I thought she did extremely well, only minor problem was a little slow picking up the lope the second way.  Pep has an extremely long stride at the trot, she goes moderately slow with it but not slow enough for this judge. She ended up 7th.  Still not sure how ponies she beat twice placed over her, oh well.  It goes with all of her other 7th place ribbons for the same class in previous years.
E also got a 3rd with her entry in the action photograph.