The Stepping Stone Horse Show

I haven't posted in a bit because I've been having a streak of bad luck lately. The worst of it was Palmer, my aging golden. He had a bad fall and it's been touch and go this past week but today he could finally get up on his own. I think we are over the worse of it.

But onto life with an ex race horse!

This weekend, Toby and I went to a local horse show. It was a show geared for beginner people in the horse show world. This doesn't mean we are beginner riders, just that we are not experienced at showing. I hadn't been to a big show in probably 18 years. And my horse, Toby, hadn't been to a show in 8 years. So this was a great opportunity for us to get back into the swing of things. And it was a dressage show which Toby has only been working at for 2 months.

I must also divulge that Toby has had issues with trailering. Particularly with slant trailers. So I planned to use my farrier's stock trailer, had another horse from our barn go with us and everything worked like a charm! The stock trailer has a middle divider so we essentially had two box stalls for the horses. We didn't tie them up either. This made for a very happy Toby.

Getting him to the show was my number one goal and we did it! To be able to compete was another goal and to win anything was icing on the cake.

Toby and I competed at the Introductory level and we had a blast. I didn't have anyone there to shoot photos of us when we rode but I did get this one of us afterwards:




And you can see just how actually lazy Toby was in the ring! He wasn't listening to my aids that well but overall, in the scheme of things, he was great:




Toby and I were awarded 2 blue ribbons and then a LOVELY saddle pad from Bad Pony for being the best horse going into dressage as a new career.

Isn't he fetching in it?!







As I've told him - He won the roses!