Another Show Day Come and Gone

You all must be the best well wishers of all time.  If you'll remember from yesterday, I asked you to wish me well in the following areas: no tire blowouts, no getting bucked off, no off course errors (real or imagined), and no scores under 60%.

We managed to avoid every single thing on the list!  So thank you very, very much!

The show went well.  I'll post my score sheets starting tomorrow.  If you find them boring, just come back on Thursday when I'll probably have something new to talk about.

A few comments about the day ...  

I met a blog reader (Hi Angela!) which was really fun.  If you live somewhat locally and you know that you and I are going to be in the same location, please, please, please introduce yourself! You're not bothering me, and I genuinely love meeting new people.  I love to hear about your horses and your equine journey.  If I ever give a friendly hello a cold shoulder, someone PLEASE take a moment to b*tch slap me back to reality!

Speedy got a great compliment from a gentleman in the bleachers.  As we left the dressage court after riding our first test, he approached and asked if Speedy was all Arab.  I smiled and answered, yep, he's the real deal.  The man was just certain he must have been only part Arab since he looked so BIG in the arena.  He also called us elegant and lovely.  Speedy gets a lot of compliments from volunteers and onlookers.  I've blogged about that before, but it's still nice to hear.  As I walked away from him, I heard a woman comment to her group that Speedy was the nicest horse.  I smiled at her, too.  What a great day!

I watched some of the Western Dressage.  It was quite interesting.  Most of the competitors looked as though they were getting ready to work cattle. There was very little bling, which I had expected, and lots more leather, chaps, and plaid shirts.  Most wore helmets, but not all.  Here are a couple of snapshots of one rider whose test I watched.  Click to enlarge.

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I showed you Speedy's forelock braid yesterday.  Here's how the French braid came out.  The loose hairs at the bottom are hidden by his show pad so I don't usually bother with them

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I am so tempted to say that the judge was generous, but I am NOT going to say it.  I am just going to grin happily at my ABOVE 60% scores and accept that this judge thought we did better than satisfactory tests. Check out that second place at Training Level Test 2 - we were ONE POINT away from a tie.  So close!

We had a great day!

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