Rachel and Grandma and Arabian Horses at Pacific Rim Part 3

Part 1 Pacific Rim
Most classic head was not our class. I swear I'm never going to show in that class again. I understood Hope not winning in the last show, but I have no clue what happened at this one. They placed the entire class and she was fourth. Not often will you hear me grumble, but I just didn't get this. I suppose there were other owners who felt the same way.

Showmanship didn't go all that well either. Rachel forgot about her quartering and got turned around when she did remember it. Talk about a dyslexic moment. Crystal was sitting on the rail and laughingly told Rachel she needed to come over for lessons before she showed showmanship again. I agree with Crystal.

Then it was time for my class. I left Rachel to take care of Hope and headed off to get ready for my class. I expected to see Rachel back as soon as she put Hope away. I guess I expected too much. I didn't see Rachel until I was ready to go into my class. It's a good thing I only had to make a couple more trips to the restroom.

Schooling Dandy in the arena the night before had gone really well. I couldn't remember if he had ever shown in this arena so I wasn't sure what to expect. But the horse went around like a champ.

The footing in this arena isn't the best. It packs down hard as a rock by the end of a session, sometimes sooner if the classes are big. Because we were schooling so late at night, the footing around the rail was hard as a rock. I rode the horse off the rail to keep him in the soft ground and I had Rachel do the same.

Dandy had done so well schooling the night before, I hadn't tried to squeeze in a session before classes in the morning. I don't know where I'd have squeezed it if I'd needed to anyway.

I rode in the ring feeling confident that there were no goblins for Dandy in this ring. It looked like I was right until they asked us to lope. Since the arena had been freshly drug and the class was small, I rode Dandy right on the rail. When I cued him to lope his flipped his tail and I heard this cracking sound, like a whip right at the horse's hocks.

Poor Dandy hadn't a clue what had happened to him and at first I didn't either. As the horse scooted his butt so deep underneath himself his front end elevated, I realized his tail had stuck the loose white plastic sheeting they had applied to the rail ALL the way around the arena. The loose plastic reverberating had caused the cracking sound.

There was no way I could explain to my frightened horse the trolls weren't after him. Even though he immediately came down and rolled back over in the bridle, the Arabian horse was visibly shaken. I could feel the tension in his body throughout the class. While I can't complain about his behavior, he was just not the soft, slow horse I usually ride.

Because Dandy is such a big horse, most people don't realize that he can move as slow as he does while still moving correctly. So his pace in the class, while fast for him, was probably slower than most people would ever expect him to be. I was pleased that he was holding it together when he was so obviously frightened.

Coming down the same rail, loping the opposite direction, we had another small bobble just before the corner. The horse in front of us turned early in the corner so I sent Dandy deep. But the horse in front dropped it's shoulder badly on the turn and swung its butt around right into Dandy's path.

The horse raised up just a notch and then rolled back over down into the requested jog. Then the horse let out the biggest sigh. Don't ask me why another near wreck caused the horse to relax but it did. He made the final pass that slow amazing jog that blows people away.

Sitting in the line-up waiting for the class placings, Dandy again let out with another deep sigh. The poor guy had had quite a morning from standing tied for most of it, to being attacked by some invisible trolls in the arena. I guess our placing of third in a class of nine wasn't all that bad.

To be continued..........


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