Who's Tired of Horse Show Pictures?

NOT ME!   J took E and me to the local saddle club show.  It was a church benefit for African missions.   They had added a new class, Ranch Horse Pleasure, which is a pattern class and E was looking forward to showing in it.  I took Otoelene to ride and Wrangler to show in halter, at least that was the plan at the start.   

 It ended up that the rocky ground in the ring was too much for Otoelene's tender rear hoof so she stayed on the side lines.  I then saddled up Wrangler to see what he would do.  When I took him to the ring to lunge him before the classes started, the show was on, at least for him.  Snorting, prancing, tail flipped over his back, rearing, bucking, kicking out, but I didn't lose control and after about 10 minutes it was like a switch had flipped and he was quite and lazy and not wanting to go.  I'm sure anyone that watched him warm up thought I was crazy to get on, and I think J had to walk away and not look, but Wrangler did fine. (I did hold on to the horn pretty tight for the first minute or so) But no more drama in the warm-up.

 So, off with the saddle and into the open halter class where we were 3rd out of 6.

 E showed Pep in a Youth Western pleasure class next.

 She has some issues with her hat,

 and again with the hat.  I keep telling her if she would just wear her helmet she wouldn't have to worry about the hat.

 She still managed to win the class.  Good job E and Pep.  J videoed the pattern class so no pictures there.  E did a great job against a local reining trainer and the group of horses that he brought and ended up 4th out of 9.

 I was going to take Wrangler in 5 and under Go As You Please but there weren't any other entries so I transferred to Open Go As You Please.  But first there was a benefit GAYP class where it was just ribbons and no pay back with all of the entry fees going to the charity. 19 horses were signed up for this class.

 That meant being in lots of crowds.  Wrangler handled it perfectly.  Unfortunately, they didn't place the class but gave everyone a ribbon which I didn't quite understand.  I can see handing out the special zebra ribbons (for Africa which were pretty cool) but you can still place the class.

 Anyway, we still had Open Western GAYP, which E and Pep were in too.  Wrangler did great.  There is no automatic pilot yet and he is very lazy and needs constant bumping but at this stage that is safer than taking off.  So at the end of the class the judge comes up to me and says how much she likes my horse and how great he looks and she can tell by his name what good breeding he has but....HE WENT TOO SLOW.  Can a western pleasure horse really go too slow?  She also said she thought he was tender footed, and yes of course he was because he was barefoot in a ring with a bunch of rocks.  So instead of winning the class like everyone else thought we would, we didn't place.

At least E and Pep got second.  And I certainly don't mind being beat by her.  I just love her pony tail and the light bouncing off Pep's bridle.  Maybe I need some bling like that.  So, even without a ribbon for the under saddle class, I am counting the show as a big success.  I couldn't have asked Wrangler to do any better.  Now we will have to step it up a notch and start cantering.