We arrived bright and early in the morning.
This is literally the only photo I got all day
Got Liam ready and headed to the ring. Liam was nice and relaxed by the trailer, but as we got closer to the ring, further away from the trailer we were waking up. By the time I got to the ring Liam was prancing and I said to my husband to go to the show office and check in and get my number and that I need to get on...
I decided not to lunge. Liam needs to be a grown up horse and deal. There wasn't a good place to lunge anyway. As soon as I swung my leg over the saddle Liam started to trot off. We trotted around for a while. Liam was being spooky and fresh. But I do have to say, he never did anything super bad. This show was the biggest show Liam and I have ever attended. It was busy, there were people and horses everywhere. There really was a lot to look at. I flatted Liam for a while and he started to relax a bit. I hopped off and learned my first course. Got back on flatted some more, jumped a few warm up jumps, and before you know it was heading into the ring.
The courses were really great! Pretty much straight forward and not tricky at all. This is the first show that Liam was not able to flat in the show ring. All other shows, we were able to flat in the ring in the morning before the show started, so this was really the first time we headed in truely cold.
The first course was a power and speed class. Liam was a bit peaky at the first jump in the first class, but jumped it, and he acted up, bucking/leaping rocking horse nonsense, between jumps 2 and 3 and was pretty bold the entire course, but all in all I was pleased. He jumped all the jumps, was clear, and got all his lead changes. I made the mistake and turned before the timers and was almost out of the ring before the announcer said that I didn't go through the timers and I had to turn around a trot back through them. Opps.
The second course was a speed/timed first round class and it went good too. Again, Liam jumped all the jumps, no nonsense in between jumps this time, just a little bold again. I could steer, but really didn't have brakes or was able to balance. All in all I was pleased again and we were clear.
The last class I was determined to have brakes. It probably was our best course of the day except for one jump, which we had the rail. I didn't make a decision to the jump and I should have rode to the add up distance, but just kind of sat there and threw my body at him and he hit the rail with his front legs. Oh well. The rest of the course was nice. I had much better control.
All in all it was a good first show this year. It was Liam's 5th show ever and I am really happy with him. What I took away is we need to work on balanced open canter.
It sounds like a good show! :)
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