I'm sooo excited. I just ordered my suit. check out how cool im going to look in THIS!

mines black pinstriped.

quote:

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Originally posted by murkybubble:
DAMN that's expensive.

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oh trust me, i know. Pretty sure every last penny I am making this summer is going towards that damn animal.

julie: you think that suit's expensive, i need two new saddles this summer. the tree on my jumping saddle is broken and my dressage saddle doesn't fit my new horse. at about $1000 each, that's a wee bit pricey...and the new horse is having lameness issues. ugh. my dad rides, though, so he pays for it all, since they're his horses...

lycia, i know what you mean about dreams come true...both of "my" beasties make me so happy. right now with leah i'm in the 'dreaming' stage, the 'dream come true' will be in a few years. but during my lesson on friday, george (my trainer) said we could be doing training level eventing by next year, and she should be able to go at least prelim...i'm so excited. with king, i'm just happy that he's sound (navicular horse) and that i can enjoy his great personality. and maybe this summer we'll finally get to first level dressage.

saddles are soooo expensive..its sickening! Mines too small for me. I need a 22 inch adujustable bar saddle (ha! good luck finding THAT used!) Which is going to run me about $1,400. *sigh* maybe next summer. I can deal with my 21 inch for now.

although judging from the way she took off across the field with me at a flat gallop today, being able to go cross-country safely & sanely is going to take awhile...

Saturday we had our first class, which was an eopen english plesaure 18-38 class. This means that any breed can enter, as well as both hunter and saddleseat disciplines can compete. A friend had ridden Solo in a class earlier in the day, and he was really misbehaving. So about 15 minutes before my class I got on him and started warming him up. he was AWFUL! He got in a couple of good bucks and nearly dumped me in a giant puddle. I couldn't get him to calm down. By the time my class started, he was dripping with sweat. Once we entered the ring, he only got worse. There were 14 other horses in the ring with me, too. All of these horses were NICE. We're talking major show horses here. I knew I didn't have a chance. When they asked for the reverse, Solo just went crazy. I nearly ran the judge down.

and I was dismissed from the class. I was sooo heartbroken. My first big show and I was asked to leave the ring. I was really mad at Solo, too. He's so good for me at home and I had the greatest ride on him the day before. and he had to do this.

The next day I was thiking about dropping my class. It was another large one and I didn't want to take the risk. But I decided to stick with it. This time I only gave him 5 minute warm up time, and into the ring he went.

My only goal was to make it through the class. That's all I wanted. I wasn't expecting to do well because I Was competing against young horses who were all in training and seasoned pros at the show ring. (Solo was once a show horse, but he is no 18 years old and has been out of professional training for about 8 years)

The class did not go great. He was still acting up a bit, and he didn't trot on the reverse, or trot into the lineup at the end. and he was going really really fast. But I made ie through the class without being asked to leave.

So I go into the lineup, and wait for them to announce the first-sixth place winners so I could get outta there and just be done with it.

And then they announced my name. Me and Solo had won fourth place. Out of eleven. That means I beat seven SHOW horses. All in training. Who knees were level whith the ground when the trotted, and who had tails that dragged on the ground at least 2 feet. I could not believe it.

So yea, I'm so so proud of my boy. Even though I know he could have performed better. Here are a couple pictures of us after our class-

sucks about the first class... but they're always better at home when no one is watching, gotta love it. and being eliminated (or dismissed or whatever) is so embarrassing. (like when you go off course in a combined training class that you're winning AT YOUR HOME BARN. not my finest hour.) leah's first show with me was pretty interesting...she spent almost the entire time in the warmup ring bucking. when she wasn't bucking, she was tossing her head. by the time we got into the show ring, my helmet & jacket were covered in green globs of spit. gross. but it didn't go to badly, and actually george (one of the trainers) later told me it went better than he expected. apparently he hadn't thought it would even make it through the tests.