Hunter/Speed Show

Yesterday I got off work at 1PM and blitzed to the barn to hook up and head out. I made it to Tracys house by 3:30 and we headed up to the showgrounds after that. It was super crowded, there had to be at least 100 horses there. 

I signed up for the flat classes hoping he would behave and we could rock out like we used to, even though hunters aren't my thing. However, the hunters in my class were all jumpers or dressage horses, lol besides Tracy's mare, Billy, who won the hunter classes.

The tiny pony stallion! OMG!

Tracy tacking up BIlly for warm up

tacking Yanks up

small, small, small, XL

Both of the flat classes actually really sucked. Yankee thought he was on the track again and everytime a horse passed him he tried to bite them, or kick out or buck, so it was a beautiful trainwreck of 2 classes, ha. However, he had his moments....

...where he looked good. Tracy and I laughing at something.

When he loked good he looked great, but the judge told me in line-up she caught him all 4 times he bucked in one class, and the class where she was going to pin me 1st, she caught him the ONLY time he bucked. Brat!!! I was kinda mad just because I came to this in hopes he would get some show experience. Oh well, still had fun with Tracy.

My very red looking registered black bay TB, wtf.!

Kim, Tracy's mom, showing her mare, Billy.

So yankee got a huge break (like 4 hours) while the western pleasure was going on when I decided if he wanted to be a retard and run like crazy. Fine then! Remember when I said I wanted to try barrel racing in the spring? WELL. WE did!

HE LOVED IT! Too much...he started off great, fast, sitting on his booty, turning with the lighest cue, coming back from the dead gallop to a halt...almost like a QH, in ALL ENGLISH tack, ha!! All the Westerners couldn't believe I STAYED in the tack. Um, not hard when you KNOW how to ride! It cracked me up how terrible they were, balance wise. If they didn't have western saddles, or a horn, I am certain half of them would have fallen off.

There were about 40 runners in each class, 2 poles and 2 barrel classes. He was so quick, he was only about 5 seconds off the pro QH leaders. I was impressed that my big TB could almost keep up with the quick, nimble, tiny, QHs trained for this. He even switched his leads through the poles!! Crazy.

After a while though, he started getting kinda hyped up. for the 1st 2 runs he was fine afterwards, standing calm and cool like a gentleman. I was so happy! It was getting really late though by the barrels class (1:30AM), and he started to get bored, ancy and tired. I ran the first barrels and he was pretty bad, pulling on me, on the forehand, etc. His gallops were great, but since we were only doing this for fun, I didn't want him to stop using himself properly and running through my aids, so I scratched the last class.

Tracy and her mom

Overall, it was really fun and I hope next time he behaves a bit calmer...I want him to get better at enhancing his calm, but also, some cash payback would be cool :) Tracy finished and all I wanted was sleep and food. i hadn't eaten in 16 hours or slept for 21...I was pooped. We konked out at 4AM and today I got up at 10:30AM. Kinda tired.

Yankee is staying at Tracy's for 3 days, and he is getting the days off. Its supposed to be 105 with heat index of 112 till Wednesday...ZOMG!