Taylor's 2005 Show Season...page 2

On Sunday, the showmanship judging was...um...strange, to say the least. Oh well, you'll have that! our riding classes went ridiculously wrong. I think the judge was just letting the class run as long as he could...if you let the class go on long enough someone is BOUND to make a mistake, making then judging easier LOL! Taylor was wonderful, we won the Senior HUS out of 9, and were 2nd in the Amateur HUS out of a bunch (at least 13, but I am not sure). Courtney counted the times I went around the ring in my last class. I stayed on the rail the entire time, and we made 20 1/2 laps around the arena in one class. CRAZY! Especially in 90 degrees and HIGH humidity. Poor Taylor was whupped after this one.

Monday was a special event Hunter Under Saddle/Western Pleasure show. We were finished showing our classes by 9:30am, and got a nice early start on the drive home. Taylor was a bit grouchy after the long weekend. She didn't do anything really bad, she just didn't listen very well to Courtney. I had to get after her a bit in my Senior HUS class, she came around and we ended up 2nd, and 3rd in the Amateur HUS. We were home by 3;30pm, and Taylor first rolled in the sandiest part of the arena and then chased Corky round and round to make up for several days of missing her!

Video clips!
Here are some short video clips of our show this weekend.
Taylor - trotting video #1
Taylor - trotting video #2
Taylor - canter video #1
Taylor - canter video #2
Be patient, they take a few moments to load!




Franklin Furnace, OH AQHA show August 13-14, 2005

I decided to take a risk and try this show out. Lesson number one - ALWAYS check the map before you leave! I had some simple directions, but not until I reached Columbus (2 hours into the drive) that I pulled the map out to see just exactly how far this Franklin Furnace town was. Yikes, it is on the southernmost tip of Ohio on the Ohio River...about as far from Lima as I could possibly go and still stay in Ohio! 5 hours later I reached the show grounds at the Ohio Horse Park (I didn't know Ohio had a horse park!!!).

The show was worth the drive. It was laid back, but with decent numbers. We started off the weekend on Saturday with a mediocre performance in showmanship (both Taylor and I were very dull from the heat). I let Taylor rest in her stall in front of her fans all morning, and we came back to take a 2nd in the amateur hunter under saddle! Sunday was even better - we were rested and awake and laid down a nice tight pattern to take first in amateur showmanship, and came back to take a 1st in amateur hunter under saddle and a second in senior hunter under saddle.

What can totally ruin one's good feeling is to hear poor-sport fellow competitors bad mouth the judge and the horses he placed. I walked behind a couple of exhibitors that were in my class and listened to them call the judge was crap that placed garbage horses. Wow, made me feel really good! People like this make up the main reason why I don't like to show in Ohio. Some people just can't be happy for someone else, even someone they were talking to and being very friendly with before the class! I swear, if I ever got that bitter I would QUIT the horses and buy a motorcycle. But on a good note, I picked up 2 1/2 points, and the show management at this show was extremely nice and accommodating.



It's Futurity season!

Well, we had decent rides at the SOQHA Futurity show, but had little mistakes here and there that kept us from the good placings. I am starting to have trouble with Taylor anticipating the canter when she is walking. Time to go home and school a bit!

Once again, we had super nice, quiet, clean rides at the Ohio Futurity. This is the last year for this show, so I am a little sad as I take our last Futurity photo:


Just for fun, let's look back at Taylor's very first Ohio Futurity, and her 11th place (out of 50+) in the open Longe Line:

Wow, have we grown!