Gypsy and I went to our first in-hand show! It was Winter Woolies at the fairgrounds, a very low key schooling type show. I was worried at first when she was a bit crazed getting off the trailer. She couldn't settle at first, and was terribly worried about being not near other horses. I was very annoyed my leather halter didn't come in the mail in time for the show, and I didn't want to take her in the ring with her appearingly flimsy arab cable halter. So off we went into our first class with our lame purple nylon halter. I was a little disheartened when she was very wiggly and distracted in our first class- Novice Horsemanship. But after we went out of the ring from that first class, she really settled and seemed to chill out. There is hope! Our second class was right after the first- first year showmanship. And she was much calmer and less wiggly. We earned a third place ribbon! Yay! Such excitement! Our third and last class had a pretty good wait between, and she was so chill by then that I decided to give the cable halter a go. I was worried for nothing, she was totally fine in it. Better even, since that has a small chain under the chin. Our last class was the 19 and over handler, and I was nervous for that one. It was a more difficult pattern, but she did her best yet in that one. We earned ourselves a fourth place ribbon there, and I was so surprised and happy! Great job pony! She needs some more work on setting up quicker and not moving once we set, but she is getting better with work at home. There is another winter woolie show the second weekend in February that I'd like to take her to as well.
Ha, and today, I got a wild hair to take Gypsy out and do a mini-wannabe trail ride with her across the street in the field/woods thing. HA. The most riding I've been doing on her is riding bareback down Beasley street and back. So I'm not sure why I got this bright and also suicidal idea. But I led her down the road to the gate and through, then climbed on. And actually, I was fairly happy with how she did. By all means, she pranced just about 98% of the time...but there was no rearing/bucking, and only one big giant spook. I thought, for what I've done with her (ZERO trailriding almost) she did fairly well, especially since she is such a fanatical anxious little thing. Head was up in crazy mode, tiny prancy trot, and there was a lot of stopping and staring at a potential horse-killing tractor/wood board/puddle. But we went all the way around the path through the trees, big field, and down the side of the other field. She was so terrified of the big tractor in the field, she felt like a coiled spring about to bolt any second. I was very happy she tried to trust me and we walked by with no incident. I did get off and led her through the path through the actual woods. I was especially proud of her when she rode through some water that had flooded over the path. So yes, a bad idea, asking too much of my non-trail riding, retired-from-riding old pony, but didn't go so badly. Ha
