palace of winds

Everett and I went to his first show on Saturday, May 31. I’ve held off posting until I had pictures of Himself to share; I still don’t have any from the classes, but if I don’t post soon we all know I never will. (As I write this I glance at the list of the posts I have saved as drafts in WordPress — hello part 4 of my April 2006 Baton Rouge trip.)

Friday I skipped show practice to bathe and braid. It was my first time braiding, ever. A few months ago I splurged (hugely) on an instructional dvd called Lucky Braids (I sold a bunch of stuff [coughactionfiguresahemtotalgeek] before my move), and I’d watched it a handful of times and ‘practiced’ by doing four braids, getting frustrated beyond all reason with people bothering me, and giving up. So this was my first real go at it. I am a little embarrassed to admit how long I spent working on them, but afterwards everyone ooh’d and aah’d appropriately and said how great they looked. I kept adding ‘for a first braid job’ because in my head they should’ve been Lucky Braids. They were not. But they were good for a first try! (And I cut my fingers open tying the yarn. Injury equals effort, right? Next time I’ll tape them.)

I borrowed a lovely pale pink stretchy hood from another boarder (there was a whole debacle with the one I ordered from Fleet Farm) for him, so got him all PJ’d up and put to bed. Two other girls and myself were staying at the farm, so we got ourselves showered and put to bed too. (There was some merry-go-rounding trying to get all the cats out of the spare bedroom, which was actually kind of hilarious. Twice we thought we had them all out, had turned out the lights and were finally nearly asleep, only to have another start rustling around under the bed. With five cats in the house it shouldn’t be rocket science, but they are sneaky.)

We tossed and turned all night; the alarm was set for 3:30, but at 3:15 we gave up and got up. No, you aren’t seeing the numbers wrong. The show started at 8; my trainer believes in being there an hour to an hour and a half early. We were scheduled to load at 5:30, which meant we’d actually start loading at 5:15 (trainer can get a little cranky, shall we say, if things aren’t running ahead of schedule). I still had to braid Ev’s forelock (if he hadn’t totally trashed the other braids overnight), give him breakfast, have my own breakfast (I am a huge believer in breakfast), and lunge. I ended up having more time than I needed — Ev was totally not fresh, and we were both totally bored with lunging after twenty minutes. I don’t know how some of the girls manage a whole hour. So we chilled for a while, I finished loading up my stuff in the trailer, life was good.

The ride over was pretty uneventful. S- had a neighbor pulling her big trailer and I rode with him. He drives semis for his day job, so was totally relaxed with the monster seven-horse-plus-tack-rooms. There were only a few trailers already at the showgrounds when we arrived, so we claimed a few great parking spots and got to work.

It had rained the night before on top of a very wet week, so the arena was a mud pit. Everett wasn’t thrilled with the conditions. He’s been great in big group situations — he doesn’t care about horses passing him or coming up behind him or anything — but he isn’t all that keen on running through mud. He spent the first part of the warm-up ride tip-toeing, eying the big announcer’s building and some billboards, trying to pick his feet up out of all that muck and not cantering, no thank you. I got a few strides out of him, but in general he just wasn’t having it. After a while I gave up on it, hoping that once we were in the class and everyone was going the same way he’d be more inclined, especially since it was a little drier around the perimeter — if we could stick there he’d be happier. (If he felt like going that close to the announcer’s building, ha.)

Mud aside, it was pretty fun warming up with my guy. He was more low-key than any other horse I’ve shown; he had a good look around, but he’s just a pretty laid-back, willing dude. I felt bad having such a sloppy first show experience; at the same time I just wanted to give him a good romp around our classes, so if we didn’t canter we didn’t canter. He’s my guy so I wasn’t feeling any pressure.

After warm-ups we went back to the trailer and hung out for a while; I watched some pals in their halter classes. My mom, sister, and nephew showed up shortly after I’d started getting ready for my class, and my mom snapped some pics for me. So, my handsome boy! (and my atrocious position; after looking at these I went to my trainer in horror, asking if my leg was always so far forward and my shoulders so far back and why had she never said anything to me?!, and she claims she’s never noticed, but — well, I don’t think I’m imagining it — but that’s all a story for another day [and as yet unfolding anyway]):

(total chair seat — wtf?!)

(thinking very hard about stepping over)

(love that big head — and you can still kinda see the little scrape above his eye from when we fell on our faces)

(saying hello to baby Strider)

(close-up of the braid job — you can see a few went wonky overnight, but overall yay for a first effort! next time I’ll try to spend less time agonizing over the braiding part and more time concentrating on the tying-up)

(ready to rock!)

Our first class went pretty well. He cantered, with correct leads and everything, and maintained it really well — which is great since I don’t do a lot of cantering around and around the arena at home. He’s not all that rateable yet, but I was just looking for him to do the gait. We had some trouble with traffic; everyone was going such different speeds (though I took it as a good sign that we were both passing people and being passed) that we kept getting in clumps of horses, and between all the other riders and the scary announcer’s stand and barrels and signs and little lakes, we were kind of all over. But I did remember to smile!

The English classes were split into only two age groups — 17 and under, and 18+ — so the classes ran Junior English Pleasure, Senior English Pleasure, Junior English Equitation, then Senior English Equitation. They’d scrapped the equitation pattern on account of the mud (a bit sad; I was looking forward to the pattern, which had no cantering yay!), so it was going to pretty much be a repeat of pleasure. After our first go we parked on the lawn near the arena gate to wait for the second junior class to run. And that’s when the buggies came.

From around a bit of a bend, behind some trees and trailers, appeared a little palomino pony pulling an airy little cart. Everett’s head shot up, ears forward, body gone all tense and ready. He didn’t lean or shift, which was good; he wasn’t quite going anywhere, just ready in case things with this little wheeled creature escalated. He didn’t trust this weird beastie, not at all, and snorted and kept himself facing it as it went by, dancing a bit. (He didn’t like the minis at the barn at first either, nor the llama; he still eyes them askance sometimes, as he does the smaller pony.) I talked and walked him into a bit of a calmer state, though as the junior class went on a handful of other buggies appeared. One was pulled by a horse and he seemed most interested in that, giving it a quiet questioning sort of nicker (first time I’ve heard him talk!).

Our second class was like our first at a higher state of alertness. The announcer’s stand was scarier, and we were on big-time look-out for all those buggies zooming around outside the ring. The canter was bigger too, and splashier; during one take-off I felt a huge spray of mud go up one of my boots and a few flecks land on my face. I just had to laugh.

Sadly I don’t have any pictures of us after our class. I wish I did; I wish I had some artsy close-ups of my mud-spattered boots, the splotch on my collar, his spackled belly. But when we were out the gate I was off in a flash (so I could walk him past those buggies), and then getting his gear and mine off as quickly as possible. The best I can offer is this link to the professional photographer’s shot of us (if you need a log-in it’s “high-action photos”; leave the password blank; and feel free to visit the High Action Photography website!). (He’s looking at a billboard there, if you’re wondering.)

And this…is turning out so, so very long-winded. I imagine it could use a judicious edit, but I’m afraid if I try it will join the ranks of Bryce’s November 2006 visit and remain forever a draft.

The other things I meant to tell you about but, let’s face it, probably never will include attending my very first tractor pull, and our nicest day of the year so far, one that actually felt like summer and involved walking around the lake, a little picnic, some ice cream, and my first sunburn of the season. And now, it’s quitting time.