Well, not all the boys...
While Bandon and I have a lot of skills to grow and work on at home, I needed to start getting him out if I was going to expect him to be able to ride off the farm long term.
The few experiences we'd already had off-site made me dread it. Bandon sits back when single tied (something that in his past badly wounded his poll) so tying him to the trailer wasn't an option. That leaves me holding onto a pacing nervous horse who occasionally forgets to give me personal space, however long we were at an event.
Rivermont is a little more than an hour away and offers monthly Hunter Jumper shows. This year, the shows included classes for Green Horses. The morning of the event, I was a serious bundle of nerves. I don't know why, normally at events I get butterflies but nothing like the mind racing I had Saturday morning. Maybe it was the Hunter Pace recently going badly that left me asking, "Why am I doing this? Why am I taking on this huge job?"
What I would love is a finished horse you can take to shows, maybe acts a bit higher than normal, but is still the same horse. The only way I was going to get there with MY horse, was to put hours in. I didn't want to, I didn't have any life changing reason I had to, and it took a hard push to get me to do it at all.
My goal for the day was to keep my cool and not get flustered no matter what he did. If he ran over me, if we couldn't get it together enough to make it into the ring, if I ended up in tears with blistered hands and feet like last year, no matter what - I would stay perfectly calm.
He loaded up nicely and we were off. At the site we walked. And walked. Circled and walked some more at the trailer area. Once we had that, we walked towards the actual arena where horses were trotting and cantering and he blew up. Back to the trailer area, walking walking walking. We made a friend, a fellow OTTB named Joe who was here for his first show and handling it like a champ (whose owner also happens to be an Auburn fan giving me an instant friend too).
I touched base with my long-distance trainer who gave me a plan to have the second I was on his back to get his mind engaged. At that point I was a little too tired to be nervous, it wasn't hard to take his forward jig and put it on circles and patterns that made him come down to a walk on his own.
An hour later, we were in the ring. The far end of the arena was tough for him, hollowed out he began shaking his head hard and broke pace. On the gate end of the arena, he was the opposite, needing leg to keep him forward.
We were in an arena riding with another horse! We were trotting in an arena with another horse! It wasn't beautiful. It was choppy as we went back and forth between freight train and timid. It was difficult to match my hands and legs with what he needed at the time as he kept changing it up.
We took second in a group of two. I was OVER THE MOON happy with him. Some people might giggle a little and say that second out of two isn't a huge thing, but it is. We were there, we did the work, there were other horses entered in that class that never made it into the arena that day and we did.
Second class was the Hunter Hack and included two jumps. I gave a pretty strong rein between the jumps to keep him on some sort of line, but again, he did it! Not beautiful, but a start. He cantered off towards the far end of the arena, tossed his head hard, but heard me as I asked him to slow down instead of choosing to buck.
Another second place in another class of two. What a good horse!
The judge pulled us aside before we left the arena to talk to me about how much she liked my horse and how much I was doing wrong. I was really proud that she liked my horse, since I adore the goober, but I sort of tuned out her criticism of me. I heard it enough to work on it, just not so much that it took anything away from the accomplishment I felt. Yes, we needed to work on him not becoming hollowed out consistently, what she didn't know was how pleased I was at the moments I got him using his topline in the arena. Yes, closing my leg a bit more would have helped straighten his jump approach, what she didn't know was that he had very little experience on jumps that weren't mine and still he didn't balk. There was LOTS to work on. What she didn't know was that the level we were at that day, just hoping to be able to ride, was the step we were on and damned if we didn't knock that out of the park.
A lady approached me as I walked Bandon back to the trailer to untack who said that she had been watching us since we arrived and that she was impressed with how calm I had been through his outbursts and how great he settled down and rode for me.
That is the best thing anyone could have ever said to me, that is exactly what I had hoped to do! Maybe this is a post that ended up being a huge brag, so be it. For as hard as I was on myself mentally, and how much of a train wreck last show at that site was, my little horse pulled it off.
Post Script : Two days after the show, I walked Bandon down to my arena, feeling a bit more worldly, more experienced. We handled our neighboring tractor trailer repair shop noises well as we did rounding work and popped a few jumps. Sitting back in my saddle letting him walk on a loose rein afterwards, Bandon spied a cat in the woods and I was in the dirt. In my defense, he always spooks running forward, this is the first time he has ever spooked with me doing that backwards sideways thing where he's under you one minute and the next you are sitting in the air with a horse beside you. In his defense, he spooks easily and I should have kept a deep seated leg on him even if we were relaxing.
The moral is, however high you think you can go, your horse will always be there to lift you up then promptly ground you, literally. Balance is good.
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