Show Report: Chattanooga/Cleveland Charity, Cleveland TN. Part One – General

I got stuff!!

At the Dixie Cup earlier this year [Show Report], I had a moment of smallmindedness when I watched one of the kids collect a pile of prizes for winning the championship class. I wanted. Granted, my show career has had wonderful high points. I have ribbons of which I am immensely proud. However, I am not rolling in the big, gaudy tri-colors. I have a few. Perseverance over mumble-mumble decades will produce results through sheer statistics.

My haul from last weekend includes two blue ribbons for winning the regular classes, a blue-red-yellow ribbon for winning the championship, PLUS a championship neck sash for the horse & a duffelbag embroidered with the show logo. Not only loot, but useful loot.

Saddleseat continues to excel in the quality of their awards. The Chattanooga first place ribbons are longer than standard hunter/jumper championships or dressage hi-points. The Chattanooga championship is 7 inches longer than that. The only ribbons of similar length in my collection are a few low-range, year-end awards (two greens & a yellow) and a two ribbons (a red-yellow-white & a green) from Previous Horse’s fancy jumper classes. This is my first neck ribbon.

My not-so-inner 12-year-old is thrilled.

Sharing the Love

Nine shows in 7 months!!!

Huge and public thank you to Hubby for
a) funding the nonsense. Freelancing never paid this kind of money, even when markets were hot.
b) minding the house and barn while I gallivanted around the region.
c) never making a squeak about a or b.

A second enormous thank you to Ashlyn & Lela Seagle for sharing Trump.
—
Prior show reports and showing posts collected here.

Tomorrow: the blow-by-blow.

Foto Friday: Sunset Across The Pasture

RS pasture sunset

A temporary return to the Sunday Stills photo challenge while I borrow my camera back from the repair shop. The lens spot is conveniently lost in the tree shadows.

The Canon PowerShot SD750 point-and-shoot that I take with me on walks has trouble in tricky light. I prefer to think of this as dream-like rather than out of focus. Soft. Artistic.

More Foto Friday on my Flickr stream here.

Back You Go

Rodney suffered a bout of remediation. We survived.

The horses ground-tie to be groomed. They are behind a fence, so running off is inconvenient rather than dangerous. To start, I hold the leadrope. When they shift away, I shift them back to status quo ante. Move a step forward; get moved a step back. Move a step back; get moved a step forward. Eventually they get the idea. I drop the rope. Usually, they run off once or twice. I retrieve. No muss, no fuss. Once they have graduated to being reliably ground-tied, the lesson increases. If they run off, they must return. Since they stepped forward, they must step backward, not matter how many steps that entails. I’ve walked horses backwards across the field, up hill, around trees, into the barn, whatever. There is no screaming, no punishment, just a quiet, calm, implacable backward vector. They get the idea that running away is double unplusgood, don’t do it any more.

So, Rodney was getting a bath. Ground-tied. I finished and turned to coil up the hose. He stood for a few moments until the horse flies came to carry him off. Enough of this, I’m outta here. He galloped back to the barn, perhaps 100 feet. Hubby met me a quarter of the way back, leading Rodney. Nope, no more Ms. Nice Guy. I turned him around, pointed his butt toward the water trough, and back we went.

1) He made it all the way. He didn’t just shuffle back. He took nice, big backward steps that would have scored well in a dressage test.

2) He fussed once or twice. Under his anxiety and next to his overall sweet nature, Rodney has a temper. He put his foot down, flipped his head, and refused to move. Unfortunately for Rodney, he is no match for Previous Horse, When PH said no, he meant, You are going to have to alter the laws of physics to make this happen. I steam-rolled past Rodney’s resistance before it even registered.

3) When we got close to the water trough, he slid a little in the mud. I agreed that he had a point and allowed him to woozle sideways onto better footing.

He did what I asked. At no point did I question my ability to manage him. I’m pleased with both of us.

All Aboard

Went over to the saddleseat barn yesterday morning to help load for the show. All horses climbed on the trailer like troopers, even the youngster who sometimes has trouble believing that he will fit into small spaces. Once, we stood for several minutes while he pondered how to squeeze himself through the doorway to the wash stall. He means well. He tries hard. It’s just that figuring things out is not his forte. Yeah, like Rodney.

Anyway, all the horses walked right up the ramp. Three of them had to turn around and back into the rear-facing stalls. Imagine having to load yourself butt first every time you wanted go for a drive. Then, consider stand in a rattling, drafty, tin can with a wodge of hay for entertainment and seatmates who are prone to biting if you get too close.

It’s a wonder horses get on a trailer the second time.