Otherwise known as the speaker system at horse shows, is unfortunately somewhat akin to that same voice in the sky that calls the races at a track. Why it took my boyfriend blatantly saying that for me to make the connection is a wonder to us both. But needless to say, Reily made that connection very quickly. We weren’t actually going to a show, but we did want to take him to the horse park during the local winter fun show yesterday just to see how he would handle the atmosphere. We were meeting a few friends there and planning to all go cross country schooling out on the hill while the show was going on. The good news was that the boys loaded up perfect and we were headed down the road ahead of time. The bad news was that it randomly started raining on/off the whole way to the park. It wasn’t a hard rain, but it wasn’t a fine mist, it was like a steady little patter of rain.
When we arrived we tried to park by Ring 3 because it’s farther away from the main area. The rain was still coming down and unfortunately for us, Ring 1 was the main show ring, Ring 2 was the main warm-up ring and Ring 3 had been turned into some sort of Jousting arena… not good. Don’t get me wrong it was super cool to watch these people gallop their horses through the 3 contraptions that held the “doughnuts” that they try and spear with their lance, but it wasn’t very fun to have to take poor Reily off the trailer to hear the voice in the sky then see horses flat out galloping around this arena. Poor fella! He was definitely stressing! We got Boo off and my boyfriend let him graze a bit while I walked Reily around to try and calm him some and let him figure out where all the noise and commotion was coming from. It took extra long to get him groomed (if you could call it that… I think I just created more mud then anything) and tacked up because he just couldn’t stand still. But he’ll have to learn to get over those nerves so I just kept moving with him and told him to suck it up!
By the time we got him and Boo tacked and I climbed on he was still very much on his toes but no longer exploding with energy. My boyfriend and Boo moseyed on nice and slow the way they like because there was no keeping up with Reily. I was circling continually so we didn’t leave them too far behind as we headed past all the trailers and ponies to get to the cross country field. Luckily it finally stopped raining on our way out there. We met my friends at the top of the cross country course (calm ponies are much easier and quicker to tack up) and started schooling the little stuff. Reily did almost all of the “Green” level jumps including logs, coops, banks up/down, steps up/down, even the tiny little trakner! He was such a champ! We did some individual stuff and then a little course of 3-4 in a row and he was much more under control and listening.
He was obviously having a total blast running and jumping and hanging out with the 7 other riders and horses! Since he was being so good I got bold and decided to get a lead over the ditch just to see how he would react. I haven’t really worked him over any “ground pole ditches” so I figured if it was too much for him we would just walk away and come back to it in the future once I’ve had more time to work him over the ground pole practice first. So my friend used her wonder pony to give us as lead and I kept Reily just a few strides behind her and, I sh*t you not, he trotted right over!!! Never looked, never spooked, and never balked, nothing!! He just trotted right over and trotted right away with the happiest little ears you’ve ever seen! I can’t even use enough exclamation points to express how excited I was. After riding Boo for so many years and jumping this same ditch a gazillion and one times he still thinks that it’s his mortal enemy and jumps it like a freak EVERY. SINGLE. TIME! And Reily just went on over it like it was old news. He’s by far the coolest horse ever! He was much happier out there on cross country and after just a few more little jumps we headed back to the main park.
When we got back he was totally nonchalant about all the noise and chaos. I even went ahead and schooled him in the warm-up ring where he was a total star. There were crazy beginners and crazy horse running around all willy-nilly but he kept it completely together. After switching ponies and getting Boo ridden as well we packed the boys up and headed home for a well deserved rest. My boys are the greatest! Just wish we could have gotten some photos or video but the aforementioned rain made that a no-go. Next time!
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