A good start to the weekend

I hauled Lola just down the road today to a little schooling show.

We did a pattern class, which we blew because we didn't really get the pivot until the last half of the 180 degrees. We also halted crooked both times... hmmm... something to think about. But I also realized that one of my stirrups was shorter than the other from cleaning the saddle this week, so that might have contributed to that.

Leaving our class... she CAN stretch her nose to the ground!

We did a walk-trot equitation class that I felt she looked really good in.

I apparently looked reasonable enough to get fifth place. Not too shabby!

She still doesn't have much patience for standing too long for the line up. She starts out good then get bored!

We then had AGES to wait until we had a trot poles hunter course class. The idea was to give her something new to challenge her. It was certainly new... there were flowers! She also got really crabby about being tied to the trailer while waiting. It did take a very... long... time... We were fine for the first pole of the class, but the second two across the diagonal had the flowers that would eventually go under the fences, but for the time being were split to the sides creating a sort of flower shoot. She did not think much of those. Just as we got up to the pole, she looked at the flowers on the left, spooked right, saw that there were also flowers on the right and spooked back to the center. We walked over the pole! Then trotted up to the next pole, only to have her slam on the brakes and walk snorting over the next pole. Then she went right back to being a happy forward trotter.

My boyfriend reported to me that three little girls in the stands made fun of me! They thought it was pretty lame that she spooked at THAT! I wasn't there to defend myself, so I informed my boyfriend loudly that Lola has never seen flowers before, and that's the whole point of having her out at a schooling show, to have new experiences. Flowers don't eat horses... lesson learned.