In April of 2024, Bob and I began our quest to “enter one Ranch Horse Show and compete in one class without disqualification.” Bob was more ready than I even at the start being a QH and having Western training. I was a 70+ year old English rider, fox hunter for most of my riding career of 63 years.
We found a trainer who understood Bob and me and best of all had a heated indoor arena and a huge outdoor arena for when the weather was fair.
Bob was introduced to cows --although I suspect he’d met them before.
A year and a month later, Bob and I entered our first show, achieved our goals and then some. The Ranch Horse Association of Michigan has four shows a year. Bob and I started in May, and then showed again in June. The week after that show, Bob and I had an accident and he was on stall rest for 5 weeks and I was off riding for 2 weeks. I did take his stablemate to the July show just for giggles --he beat Bob’s best score by 1/2 point. However, at 28, my faithful fox hunter will not be a regular at the horse shows.
September 5-6 is the last Ranch Horse Show of the season. The patterns just came out for Horsemanship and Ranchmanship and Ranch Trail --those are the classes we will show in, along with two cow boxing classes for a total of 10 classes: 5 on Friday, and 5 on Saturday.
My new goal is to “do better than last time.” Ranch Horse classes are (like dressage) scored on each movement by two different judges. Everyone starts with a 70, then + and - are handed out.
The patterns are simple --like golf --you just have to put the ball in the hole using a little stick --seems simple until you try to do it!. All Bob has to do is w/t/c and back when asked. The tricky aspect this time is a “canter to trot, drop stirrups, turn trot out of the ring” maneuver --I practiced today --it isn’t the drop stirrups part but the distance the rider has to go from a canter to a trot is only 30 feet. My trainer will help me tomorrow, but I think the answer is to ask for the trot well ahead of the marker and take the “hit” if Bob really does break to a trot early rather than lose more points with failing to achieve a trot without stirrups!
Everything else we’ve done before --so we will just need to keep our wits about us and try. I’ve entered Bob in “novice” and “amateur novice” for the first two classes which will have the same pattern --the difficult canter to trot and drop stirrups maneuver; then he has 3 tries at Ranchmanship (open, novice, novice amateur) where the tricky part is a canter to walk transition but Bob does that well.
The next day is three trail classes, all the same pattern. The last obstacle is “load in a trailer.” Bob loads beautifully (self loads) into MY trailer --but what he will do with the trailer at the show --well, everyone is facing that problem (except the guy who owns the trailer!). Right before the “load in the trailer” is the “rope the cow dummy” --cool, we do that --but then one must dismount, collect the rope, and load the horse —hummm, do I rehang my rope on my saddle THEN load Bob or carry my rope in my hand . . .trainer will know the answer to that. one.
Later in the afternoon, Bob and I will try twice to “box a cow.” We have been practicing !!
I am excited!!! Last show of the season! We’ll have to set new goals for next year! This show my goal is to keep my rein hand DOWN and keep my right elbow IN (it seems to fly around for some reason).
CoTH member @endlessclimb took this photo at Bob’s May debut!
Have a great show ! 
