Cinder's First Show

Cinder went to her first show on Sunday.  It was a fundraiser show for one of the university's equestrian teams and was only 10mins from my barn.  They had a ground pole class I figured why not take Cin and do it in-hand.  For $20 it's a low key, easy way to get her exposure to a show atmosphere and I would have felt bad taking her to hang out and not paying.

My friend A was taking her horse in a few classes and asked if I would haul for her.  I said yes and was a little worried that Cinder would latch on to Scottie as her new BFF.  I didn't want to have THAT horse at the show; the one screaming and carrying on because their trailer buddy was gone and they were going to DIE ALONE. But, my worries were for naught, as Cinder couldn't have cared less about where Scottie was or what he was doing.

I love that  little tiny snip of white

The only Scottie related issue we had was loading Cinder.  I had picked up A and Scottie first, and then went to my barn to get Cin. She's been great in all our trailer loading practice, but I've been loading her in the first stall in the trailer.  We haven't practiced going second, especially with another horse she doesn't know already in.  It dawned on me that maybe I should have practiced putting her in second as we were trying to load and she couldn't figure out how to put herself on on a angle to get in the back stall and was more interested in making friends with Scottie than paying attention to me. We did get her in and I had just snapped the trailer tie on her when she pulled back and out of the trailer.  My thumb got smashed and the trailer tie broken in the process, but after a minute of trying again Cinder got in fine and we were on our way. So our homework over the winter is going to be loading her second.

So wet!  But so good!

We got to the show and left the ponies on the trailer while we checked in.  Cinder has untied herself a couple of times, and I don't trust her enough to leave her tied to the trailer when I'm not there to watch her. The office wasn't super organized and it took a while to check in, so by the time we unloaded our class was going. It was also raining, so I figured why bother grooming her when she's going to be soaked.  We walked up to the show ring with A and S and while Cinder was pretty wide eyed about everything, she behaved much better than I expected.  She did spin and jump a couple of times at, once at a girl getting a leg up next to us and another at a little kid dressed up as a witch with a big witches hat attached to her helmet.

Getting in the ring took a minute because there was a big puddle in front of the gate and Cinder was pretty sure it contained sharks. She did skirt it and once we were in for our class she didn't care about the wet footing and puddles in the ring. I didn't bother learning the course as I had told the organizer not to bother timing/judging us and just walked her around and over all the poles. She did get a little sassy and tried to trot a few step but listened to me well when I asked her to come back to a walk. And coming out of the ring she stared hard at the big puddle but walked through it. I was very proud of my baby horse!

Contemplating horse show life

We hung out by the ring for a while, with Cinder alternating grazing and walking circles around me.  I walked Cinder back to the trailer where A was tacking up and that's when Cinder's baby brain started to fry.  She didn't like leaving all the horses at the ring to walk alone, then had a fit about walking through the mud to the trailer (had to park in a grass field), then slipped in the mud and got mad about slipping. We walked up and down the driveway till she calmed down and I told A was going to run her home while she warmed up. It was obvious Cinder was at the sensory overload point and I wanted this to be a good experience and not end the day with her having a fit because she was tired and fried. She loaded fine by herself and was very happy to be back home.  And bonus, I made it back to the show in time to watch A's first round!