Tbird Summer Fort Welcome 2025: The First Few Days

The start of our Canadian adventures didn't go so well, and kinda set the tone for the whole show. Tbird allows Sunday arrivals and Trainer M wanted to take advantage of that to let the horses have two schooling days before they started showing. M was teaching lessons till noon on Sunday, and wanted to leave by 1, but everyone in the barn knows she runs late so we thought if we left by 2 we'd be good. And we did manage to leave just after 2. It's a 6-7hr drive depending on traffic since we'd have to go through Portland, Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle, and then cross the border and traffic on Sunday afternoons is always better than Monday mornings. 

Setback #2

Trainer M realizing she forgot her passport and me having to swing by and pick it up was setback #1. Setback #2 was a tire blowing out on the golf cart trailer that one of the other ammys was hauling. I was behind her and pulled over to see if we could change it ourselves, but the jack she had in her truck wasn't quite big enough for the trailer and we didn't feel comfortable with it. So we waited about an hour and a half for AAA to send someone out. Thankfully he was able to swap out the tire pretty quickly and we got back on the road. Trainer M had pulled off a little farther ahead of us, but decided to keep going as the horses were not happy hanging out on the trailer. But since I had M's passport and all owners had to be present with the ponies at the border, M had to wait for us up there. We crossed the border just after 10pm, quickly got the ponies settled around 11:30 and then we all headed to bed to pass out. 

M up in the schooling ring

Monday morning saw us finishing setting up, checking in at the show office, and then schooling the horses. Two of our riders had issues with their Equestrian Canada paperwork, even though they had done everything correctly and the show wouldn't release their numbers. Apparently it was a widespread issue with EC as about a two dozen other Americans at the show had the same problem. Thankfully everything was cleared up by Tuesday morning, but that was a bit stressful for them. 

The show rings weren't open for schooling, but the warm up rings were so Trainer M took Cinder out in the hunter schooling rings. The ring designated for our show arena is bordered on one side by the other hunter schooling ring, and the other side has a wall of hedges and the backside of vendor row. You could hear and see people through the hedges and Cinder was 100% certain there were monsters out to get her. Especially the corner by the restaurant. A lot of time was spent with me standing in that corner with cookies for Cin every time they came around. M just flatted and Cinder, while tense, did seem to settle as they went along. 

I absolutely loved having real wash racks at a show. Cinder not so much. 

Tuesday was the start of the show, with clear rounds in the jumper rings and ticketed schooling rounds in two out of the three hunter rings. My ring was the third hunter ring, which was just open schooling all day. Trainer M did a little warm up in the schooling ring, then took Cin into the show ring. I do think that the ring we were in was probably the spookiest of the hunter rings. There was a willow tree with a pond at the far end, a tent for spectators, the judges booth, and a smaller tent for jump crew along one long side, and then a line of trees partially blocking a walkway along the other long side. So many things for Cinder to spook at. She didn't like that she could kinda see people and horses through the trees, and then they would pop up out of nowhere at the far end. The pond was obviously full of sea monsters waiting to eat her. And then the jump crew, who were all decked out in Tbird orange, were also monsters waiting to get her. I personally thought the rings were absolutely gorgeous, but what do I know. 

Screenshot of schooling day. You can see the willow tree over the pond at the far end, and the line of trees blocking the path.

Cinder was absolutely full of herself and Trainer M had to ask me what stronger bits I brought with me, as the French link was not cutting it. I ran golf-carted back to the stalls and grabbed the slow twist Dr. Bristol and we did a ringside bit swap. I asked if Cin needed a lunge and M didn't think so, she just needed something with a little more oomph in Cin's mouth to get her attention. And the Dr. Bristol did the trick. Cinder still wanted to spook, but would listen when M got after her and they were able to have a pretty decent school.  

More screenshots!

Our plan for Wednesday, the first actual day of showing for us, was for me to hand walk Cin in the ring in the morning while it was open and for M to take her in a few 2'9" classes at the end of the day. But that's a story for another day.