Some of you may remember that I quit showing about a year and a half ago because of unreasonable anxiety and fear. Unreasonable in that nothing bad has ever happened to me with this horse or showing any horse.
I’m happy that I spent most of last week at a Morgan horse show and HAD A BALL!!! Thanks to the help of my riding instructor who was there with her show string and my daughter who cheerfully groomed for me, I had fun from the minute I got there until we left.
I was the person I always envied…happy in the make up ring, chatting and laughing with old friends. It’s taken a lot of mind-over-matter talking to myself, positive encouragement from my friends and family but I’m THERE.
We did find out that I’m not a patient wait-er…when my horse is being prepared for me and the stand around and wait period. I’m going to take a knitting project to the next show…idle hands are the devil’s workshop!
And he was a PRINCE!!! Lots of compliments from everybody who hadn’t really seen us before and even from strangers who made a point of finding my stalls and coming to tell me how much they liked him.
A 6th place ribbon and a 2nd place ribbon out of 4 classes. But the whole point was for me to not cry and to not bail and go home!
I won, over my demons!
Oh, and our puppy came for one of the sessions and completely won over everybody who met him. He is doing so well with his polite greetings…doesn’t volunteer them yet but responds to the cues to sit and be petted. And he met a few of the dogs who will be his horse show buddies. He’s just over 6 months old.
I sure wish I had the one where he sat so nice next to a young teen girl, her arm around him while she chatted with us.