4H Fair

Sunday thru today was our county's 4H Horse Fair.  The three girls from our barn did awesome!  They had showmanship and trail on Monday, western eq yesterday, and English eq and dressage today.

Anna (the girl leasing Phoenix) earned a red in both showmanship and trail.  She forgot part of her pattern in showmanship, and unfortunately was 10pts from qualifying for state fair.  The judge also noted on her score sheet that Phoenix was too thin.  To me, he needs muscling but is an ok weight.  Except for last summer when he was on pasture 24/7 and hadn't been ridden in 6 months, he's always been on the lean side.  The judge is a QH halter horse breeder, so I'm trying to not take too much offense at her comments.

Their trail class was actually pretty nice for Phoenix.  He was one of the few horses to walk right over the bridge.  Anna was able to open the rope gate, but wasn't able to get Phoenix to turn and back to close it.  They also had trot poles to do, and they were set too close for long legged Phoenix, so he jumped a couple.  Whoops!

I was happily surprised when they earned a blue in western eq!  While Phoenix didn't exactly jog or lope, they had a nicely done pattern and unlike a lot of the kids, were able to get the correct leads.

Crappy cell phone pic

Today in English, Anna nailed their pattern (which involved counter canter, which they practiced for the first time yesterday) and were called back to the premier class. They were given another pattern and about 2 minutes to learn it.  This time they had counter canter and hand gallop. Anna was pretty nervous, but held it together and earned a medallion! They ended the day by doing Intro Test A and she got a 68.6% and another medallion!  I looked over the comments on their tests, and they earned a lot of 6s and 7s, with one 8.  They got points for having a nice steady rhythm and were called a well matched pair.  I'm so proud of both of them!