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Amateur Showmanship

Wednesday, October 18, 2006



Amateur Showmanship Pattern (click here to see pattern!)

Click here to watch the video of our pattern!





I hadn't practiced much of the Amateur Showmanship pattern. This pattern called for a large curved backing maneuver and I didn't want this to screw up our straight back in the novice class. We did about 45 seconds of backing practice out on the concrete outside of the show arena before we went in. The rest of the pattern was fairly straightforward...but the novice class taught me that nothing can be taken for granted when dealing with horses!
We started with a beautiful setup at the cone, and trotted off to the second cone.
Here comes the tough part - backing in a curve to the left (a blind backup!) and ending up centered in between the two cones.
We ended up about 6 inches off center. I was pretty happy with that - that's a lot better than I thought we would do! After the back, we trotted halfway to the judge, stopped, and performed a 360 pivot. Taylor nailed it this time! After the pivot, we walked to the judge (ring steward) and set up for inspection.
We had one of those instant setups. Taylor only had to move one foot about an inch and she was perfect. I love it when she sets up herself! After inspection, we did a 90 degree pivot and walked away and out of the ring.

6 inches off center is enough to knock you out of world-class competition. I was happy with how we did, with so little practice on that element of the pattern. Taylor stayed so well behaved, even with the cheering and clapping going on in the arena! That alone is a GREAT thing!

On to equitation......my last class....

Congress 2006 - Page 3




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