Horse Show Fail

We took E and Brother to a show Saturday to practice for the State 4-H show coming up in September.  Brother started out looking really nice in the warm up but then the show started and things went downhill from there.  

 E's first class was youth go as you please.  I think there were 15 horses doing a little bit of everything.  There was even a family standing next to me hollering out, "#38 your honor, there he is, whoop, whoop, whoop, WHOOOOOP."  And this was every lap their son took, which was quite a few considering how fast he was going.  Anyway, E was managing ok for the first bit.

 Then all of this went past and Brother just couldn't hold it together.

 Too fast, head too high and E couldn't do anything to slow him back down.  

She didn't place in that class or the western pleasure go as you please which included several gaited horses flying past her.  Then it got dark and the lights came on and Brother got even worse.  Her next class was youth western pleasure which thankfully only had 2 other horses.  She did manage 2nd even with having to lope.  But then there was a 4 class break where she went and just trotted to try to calm him down.  Still, nothing helped and when they took a break right before her class I sent her in the ring to lope him around.  Unfortunately, he was just too wound up and was looking dangerous so I pulled E out and got on him myself. (I know, that makes a lot of sense.  Take the young spry girl off and put the old stiff woman on.  But I worry so what can I do?)  Let me just say, he was a handful.  I was trying to keep him in small circles so he wouldn't take off but the ring was filling up and the barrel racers were starting to warm up.   Then Brother exploded!  He took off bucking across the ring.  I looked down and thought "I'm going down" but after seeing the ground and knowing how bad it would hurt I decided to try harder to stay on.  It didn't help that someone started whooping and hollering at me "you go girl, get 'em WHOOP, WHOOP, WHOOOOOP!"  I finally got him stopped and by some miracle stayed on and managed to get him to keep cantering until he calmed down.  

I told E to switch me in for her for the last class and she said she already had.  He still wasn't perfect in the Open Western Pleasure class but he sure did a lot better and was calm with a loose rein.  The judge commented that he had really quieted down and what a nice mover he was.  But with only one other horse in the class I didn't have to worry about anything passing which helped out.  The other horse was a well seasoned pleasure horse so of course I got second but I still feel like it was a victory after that bucking session.  Oh, and someone on the rail scored my bucking ride an 8/10.
E is starting to really regret her decision to take Brother to state now.  Hopefully we can get things worked out before then.