So luckily I got to watch a few people go before it was my turn. The my adorable pinto didn’t seem to care at all that he was at a show, which I took as a good sign. The pattern started with a square halt to a trot in a straight line to the judge back to a square halt. Not the easy start I was hoping for, but what can you do right? Our first halt was dead on, but while we were trotting my little pinto decided that he had to be on TOP of me and not next to me, thus making me want to fuss at him.
Instead of correcting the problem I just let it go and let him be all over me. When we stopped in front of the judge though I was impressed. It was almost square! What I can see from the picture now, that I could not see then was that he was resting his back leg. I love this horse, but he is just so lazy! We were then supposed to do a turn a 90 degree turn and walk off in to the lineup. Our turn was…interesting…and off to the line up we went.
The rest of the class all had issues like I had, with horses not keeping a respectful distance, not standing square, or just not behaving. I figured I would have a chance of maybe getting a ribbon since I was not the only one with issues. When the class ended the judge actually came over to talk to all of us. She was not happy with the quality of the class. She said that we had all given up, which was true. It was supposed to be showmanship and instead we looked more like a misfit parade than a show class. When my horse was on top of me I should have corrected him. When he didn’t stand square I should have made him!
As soon as she said what she wanted to say I knew that she was right. I was not confident going in that I had a chance of winning so I didn’t act like it. When she called out the placing I was pretty happy that I got a 4th place finish. I had expected to be out of the ribbons so getting something made me a very happy camper! It was time to reset now for the halter class. My Pinto is adorable and so I felt much more confident going in to that class!
Don’t worry about what the judge said. It takes weeks to really teach a horse showmanship. And this was supposed to be a fun show anyway.
Pretty good. Showmanship in hand has always seemed kind of silly to me. Probably because I’ve never been very good at it.