Rachel and Grandma and Arabian Horses at the Daffodil Summer Show.....a whole herd of them! Part 2

Part 1

It was a big honor for Rachel to get to show Midnite Eclipse in a western pleasure class. Angie has allowed other kids to show the multi-championship winning Arabian horse in hunter pleasure classes but she has never let anyone show the horse in a western class before Rachel. Angie made the decision to let Rachel ride Eclipse in western pleasure based on how "soft" that Rachel can be with her hands.

Angie had actually first made the comment to me that she was impressed enough with Rachel's riding that she would consider letting her ride Eclipse western. I had encouraged Angie to do so because I thought it might be good for Rachel's self-esteem.

It had never occurred to me that Rachel would want to do this without me being involved after all we had been doing this Arabian horse thing together. We were a team............or so I thought. Discovering otherwise was a hard pill to swallow but swallow it I did despite my hurt feelings. At the horse show I kept my distance.

I'm not exactly sure why Rachel ended up wearing Angie's clothes and her cowboy hat instead of Rachel's own things, but that's what they decided to do. I image it was based on Angie having some kind of idea of how the horse should look..........keeping up his image maybe. When I saw Rachel ride into the ring, she looked like a younger version of Angie on the black horse.

I'm not going to narrate or comment on the class or Rachel's riding. I'm pretty sure that's part of what I'm not "supposed" to do. Instead you have the video and you can see how the class went.

I'm glad that Rachel did well but it was a hard class to watch. I didn't really know what to think or feel. This horse thing that I'd started with my granddaughter three summer shows ago wasn't turning out to be what I had hoped. There seemed to be a lot more hurt feelings than any kind of bonding. I had to wonder where it would go from here.

Then in the evening session, Rachel was back to riding Dandy in the amateur owner class. Her class was scheduled right before mine but I still warmed the horse up. Then I put Rachel on with very little time to school using the same strategy that I had in the morning session.



While Rachel rode that class, I was in the warm-up riding my Arabian stallion. It was hard to watch Rachel riding into the ring knowing I wouldn't be able to watch her ride and be there on the rail. I don't know if I was trying to take care of Rachel or maybe Dandy but that instinct to "be there" when Dandy and Rachel were in the ring was strong.

I hated that the schedule was laid out this way. It wouldn't be fair to Legs to ride him in a class with no warm-up so I just kept warming up my horse trying to keep my mind on Legs instead of what was going on in the ring.

I could see as the riders came out of the class that Rachel and Dandy had won. I was relieved to see that Dandy had held his own in the ring with this judge. Now if he could just hold it with Rachel.

As I got ready to ride my own Arabian horse into the ring all I could think about was Rachel's class. I was hoping that someone had taken video so that I could see how Rachel and Dandy's ride had went. It's a good thing my horse is trained..........even if he's not totally finished yet he still knows how to make an entrance.

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

Part 3