My name is Maria Price. I teach lessons, work and ride at Crooked Creek Farm, but I keep my personal horse off site. He has been in training for a year and last Saturday we went to our first horse show. Read about our adventure below.
On Saturday April 1st my horse, Regal, and I ventured to the Lincolnton Open Show. That morning I woke up and went to the barn where Regal resides, my horse trainer was already getting him ready and gave him a quick ride. I was unsure if the weather was going to be well enough to go since heavy rain and 20-mph winds were forecasted, but we decided to try.
The entire ride there it poured down rain, and I was beginning to feel nervous as this was Regal’s first horse show and only second time off property since beginning training one year ago. When we arrived, I went to the show office and signed up for two in hand classes and two flat classes. My dad and I got Regal off the trailer and let him see everything that was going on. This included the pre horse show chaos amplified by the 20-mph wind. My dad lunged Regal by our trailer until we felt he was ready to go and walk around the property, this only took a few minutes because he calmed down very fast.
We ventured down to the arena. There were a lot of horses schooling over jumps. We led Regal into the arena. It was very crowded and probably had the most horses Regal has ever seen in one place, jumping and cantering around him. I was very impressed with how calm he was and how he composed himself. My dad even sent him over the flower boxes which he has never seen before, and he was a star, so we exited the arena.
We found a spot outside of the arena where Regal was able to eat grass and we waited for what seemed like forever, but was actually only two hours. I practiced our 90 degree turns and trotting in hand to make sure we could do those tasks and felt very confident about going into the arena. Regal and I were second in the lineup for the halter class. We entered the arena, walked to the judge, and trotted to line up. He was perfect. As we stood in between the small ponies he was looking around but never offered to move. We ended up in second place.
Right after the halter class, we headed back in for showmanship. Showmanship has a pattern and is a bit more technical. We did well trotting, but failed to have a straight halt and once we got to the judge, I set him up, but he refused to stand still while the judge walked around. We are planning to work on this before our next adventure in two weeks.
Once we finished the class, I put Regal in the trailer while we grabbed lunch and worked on making the decision about the two flat classes. By this time the wind was super strong. I decided that Regal had done a great job and it might not be the right time to push him to enter a flat class with other horses. After deciding not to ride, we lunged him for about 20 minutes with his tack before cooling him down and heading home. I was very satisfied with how our second outing went given the weather circumstances and how little we knew about how Regal would react to the horse show environment. It has taken a long time to develop him into the horse he is today. We want him to listen to his person versus paying attention to everything else around him. On Saturday he did just that. This was a successful experience for me and Regal, I am excited to see what else we accomplish in the future.
