Daffodil All Arabian Spring Show - The Last Day

Part 1

After the class we walked back to the barn talking about the ride. The Arabian horse hung his head pretty low clearly telling us he was tired and had had enough. It was a good thing we had no more classes that day because we didn't have much horse left. Hopefully he would feel refreshed in the morning and not be crabby about the championships.

When we got back to the stalls, I untacked the horse and inspected his back. There above his flank were the beginnings of the "fried" hair that comes with the saddle rubbing.

I checked the pads and the bottom one was in good shape. It was clean and the satin was intact. The no-bows we use to bump the saddle up off his whithers had been in the right place. I was getting frustrated trying to figure out why this was happening when I noticed how thin the show pad that Rachel uses was. Tomorrow I was going to add another pad and see if we couldn't nip this problem in the bud.

We actually got out of the show a little bit early that night so we headed home and straight to bed. The horses weren't the only ones that were tired and we had an early schedule in the morning. I think I heard Rachel snoring before I even got my teeth brushed. I wish I could crash that easily.

We were up and on the road at 6 am so we had plenty of time for the horses to eat their breakfast before it was time to show. There's nothing crabbier than a horse that hasn't been allowed to finish a meal only to be tied in a stall tacked up and waiting for a class. My boys and I have a deal.....I never do that to them...........and they never (well mostly never) give me a hard time about the goofy schedule at horse shows.

Rachel had the first class and her parents were supposed to be there in time to see her ride. However, as usual, the championship classes were flying along much faster than expected. I swear those judges get the smell of going home in their nostrils and step things up double time.

I ended up making a call to Colleen and Ray telling them to get the lead out and get to the show or they'd be missing Rachel's class. As it was instead of helping us get ready, they arrived just in time to follow us up to the arena.

Ray came armed with his camera. You can thank him for all the pictures of the Daffodil Show on this blog. I get wrapped up in showing and forget about blog pictures. The ones I do get turn out to be fuzzy and not really useful anyway.

Watching Rachel ride in this first championship made me aware that she's struggling with the length of the romel reins. These reins I had custom made by Victor's Custom Tack especially for Dandy and his long neck. They are six inches longer than the usual romel reins.

Since the horse is so tall and has such a long neck, when he's going right, that didn't leave much rein to drape in the normal length of rein. That extra six inches adds a beautiful drape. However, if you're not able to ride with that drape and what to have direct contact with the horse's mouth like Rachel those extra six inches can feel like yards. I made a mental note to try the regular reins to help Rachel build some confidence.

Other than that, the class was ok but not as good as the earlier ones. For some reason the horse got longer than I'd seen him in a while. I'm not sure if Rachel didn't notice or if she froze up but either way, the horse stayed about the same throughout the class. Out of six horses, Dandy and Rachel took fourth place.

Dad got lots of pictures and mom got to actually see a class at these shows she's working her _ss off to pay for. Being a substitute carrier for USPS, her only day off is Sunday. By the time she gets done working the other days, she's way too tired to be doing the horse show thing. I think the only reason we entered championships at this show was so that mom could come watch us show.

I think it always means more to Rachel when her parents come to watch. She gets more talkative and seems lighter. Being the only girl with three brothers, she's taken a back seat for attention a lot. This horse showing thing is something she doesn't have to share with the boys and it's been good for her. Even Dandy seems happier when mom and day show up.

Rachel's last class she actually had a much better ride. We worked some at the break on getting her horse rounder and softer and she did pretty well. However, the judge walked up to Rachel in the line-up and told her that she was holding her romel reins improperly. Instead of keeping her hand closed around the reins, as the rule book calls for, Rachel was riding with her hand open. Because of that Rachel and Dandy ended up fourth out of four. Looking at the rest of the class I think had her hand been closed properly they would have been reserve champions.

I had been talking to her about her hand position from the beginning of the week but instead of listening, I was getting explanations of why she was holding her hand that way. I'm pretty sure this comment by the judge has fixed that problem. It was a good lesson for Rachel to learn.

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

The Last Day Part 2

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