50 years ago, this month, I was in my first show. It was Hunt Seat Equitation, Walk-Trot, 10 years and under, and I had been riding in lessons for about 10 months. It was a miserable baking hot summer afternoon. I think the whole class were riders like myself from one barn, and for all of us, it was our first show. We only rode in this class and all of us rode school horses. This was a local show, a fundraiser for a hospital.
No olympian, living or dead, has taken their performance more seriously than we did. Hair nets, jackets, polished tall boots, and leather gloves. We were in it to win it.
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My first horse show wasn’t quite so long ago…I think about 2 years ago. I thought I was so awesome then, but boy when I look back on that show…omg. I had gotten into riding about a year before then, and I was okay at it. It was not a serious show; just an annual thing my barn did every year for riders of all experience levels. My equipment (this is for hunter/jumper, mind you) was a long sleeved, western-style pink riding shirt, breeches and bulky blue schooling helmet from the Co-op, black and blue gloves, and…knee-high red socks worn with not-quite-knee-high boots from TARGET. XD
Overall, it was a pretty good first show experience for me. I got to do four events on my assigned horse, which were Equitation W/T/C, cross rails class, Western W/J/L, and trail class. I got 4th in everything except trail, in which I got got 1st out of 20 riders!! After that I decided to pursue the IEA while I was still in high school! (Take a look at my profile picture. That’s THAT show)
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My first show was in 1997. I had only been riding for maybe 3 months at the most. My instructor took me to a show at the local Arab barn. I was in a division for beginner kids, walk trot, but all of the other kids were on super fancy arab show horses, and I was on this fat little welsh/QH cross. I can’t remember now if it was an eq or pleasure division, guessing eq. There were 7 or 8 in the division, I got one 6th place ribbon. And we were late to the ring bc someone else was riding the pony for hunter over fences, and we couldn’t find my gloves. That’s probably why to this day I have dreams that I am late to the ring and miss my glass due to missing gloves. :lol: So we trot down to the ring as I am pulling on gloves and away we went! It was a lot of fun, even though I wasn’t really ready for it. lol!
Thirty three years ago. Wow this takes me back!
Eight years old with a tiny Shetland pony. Family friend who was much more knowledgeable hauled me and her two daughters to the local 4-H youth show.
I knew absolutely zero.
First class was w/t western pleasure. I had a ratty saddle, and very basic second hand clothes. No chaps, no gloves, just jeans and boots. I believe we were dead last.
Second class - w/t poles. I was too young to actually track competitors times in a speed class. I was amongst the first to go.
First time me or my pony had ever seen a poles pattern. I am still surprised to this day how we didn’t go off course.
Apparently I did pretty well. I didn’t realize my mom was actually tracking times the whole class and knew my standing until the end…first place.
I still have that ribbon. And I still think that is the one that inspired my love of competitive horseback riding.
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Wow this does bring up some serious memories! I hadn’t been taking lesson long, but the barn was hosting what was (I think) a barn-only horse show. The horse I had been taking lessons on, Frisbee, was a SAINT. I mean, he would just go wherever you looked, and was perfect. Unfortunately, he passed away in the week before the show. (Tough lesson for a 6 year old to learn)
I ended up riding another horse. (Cocoa I think…) As an adult, I think he was probably a VERY good boy, but he was not my saintly Frisbee. I think I lost every class. I remember it being scary and feeling out of control and embarrassed. Maybe that’s why I spent many years as a tween/teen holding my breath while I was competing.
@hillary again I got you beat by a decade 
There is photographic evidence somewhere (if I could find it I could scan it.,.,.) of 8yo me on a ASB schoolie,
Tall chestnut drink-of-water wearing a double bridle with blinders :eek:
Yup, little kids rode with curb & snaffle way back then.
No idea why the blinders unless this was a dropout Driving ASB.
Barn I lessoned at was mostly privately-owned 5-gaited ASB & the also-rans often ended up in the school program.
I am attired in jodphurs, paddock boots, ruffly white shirt w/string tie & a red vest.
Helmetless hair is resplendent in a Toni Perm.
This was W/T/C and somewhere I also have the faded to mint green 5th place ribbon.
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Hehe. I was 8 years old on my welsh pony. I came from a family of accomplished dressage trainers and was so busy concentrating on my sitting trot that I missed the announcer call three or four times for RISING trot. Lol I think we got fourth place- which sucked- what 8 year old wants a white ribbon? Lol
Fun thread! It must have been around 20 years ago, and I lived in western-land, shows were a variety of western, english, and speed events. My first horse was a very non-fancy paint mare. I wanted to show so we sold her and my parents bought me a gorgeous, halter-bred QH who had been the 2 year old high point champion at our local saddle club.
I’d only had him for a couple of weeks and we took him to my first show. He was the quietest, easiest show horse I’ve ever had. He knew the drill and went in the ring and squared right up. I proudly showed off my handsome horse but when the judge got to us she whispered to me that he was dropped! Yup, my been there, done that, 3year old was asleep in the ring completely dropped :lol: We still placed second out of about 15!
Once he was older, we showed in WP, Showmanship (OMG he was a showmanship machine, I can’t remember ever NOT winning that class with him!), and HUS until I went off to college and sadly had to sell him. Miss that horse every day.
@2DogsFarm : you have got to find that photo! I don’t have one of the show I describe. I do have one from about 3 months later: turtleneck, jacket, breeches, boots, hunt cap, and hair going in a thousand directions (you can see it sticking out behind my head). LOL!
My first show was 21 years ago. Walk trot division pony club show… we were asked horse care questions and our parent also had to name pieces of tack in addition to the actual riding… rubber riding boots, a barn mates old breeches, a blazer my mom had bought at a second hand store and tailored to fit me as well as have the proper opening at the back for riding! Such fond memories from that day! Ended up with some 1st&2nds and was so happy my mom got her skill testing question correct lol.
Walk-trot equitation, August, 1967 at the Battle Creek Hunt Club. I was 10.
My family was completely non-horsey. I wore a pair of ancient Kentucky jodphurs that the wife of the M.F.H. gave me when I showed up for my first riding lesson in shorts, a ratcatcher shirt purchased from the club’s consignment shop, last year’s school shoes, and a (drumroll) red sport coat borrowed from the boy across the street.
I rode Rodney, one of the club’s school horses. My instructor took a piece of baling twine and tied it from his bit ring to the front saddle D so he couldn’t stop and eat grass in the show ring. :lol:
We got 3rd place.
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Mine was a winter, in house, schooling show. I had just graduated to the lowest riding level allowed to show and had a big, grey school horse I had never ridden before. The class was WTC Equitation and I proudly rode my best effort. Standing in line waiting for the results I had high hopes, that were absolutely crushed when someone else’s name was called for First place.
I was so disappointed that I almost missed them announcing my name for Second place! :lol:
Luckily for me we were hosting the show and I was put to work all day, had no time to think of anything else! Got up at 4am got ready and stuck a hoodie over my show shirt and pajama pants over my breeches and drove to the barn to start setting everything up. We were taking all of our horses in and out all day long, changing the courses up and the jump heights then going straight back out. All of the horses used or at least the majority were used from the pasture they’re in 24/7 which was a very large pasture. We did a lot of chasing and then bringing them up and down the hill when they were due to come or go. Had an anxiety attack right before but got lucky despite how tense I was to receive second place in a really competitive division–then I had to come back the next day to do it all over again.
On the plus side I’m now really good at tacking up a horse in like 5 minutes…saddle, boots, bridle, and all.
First show was an open jumper class on my 11 hand Shetland. :eek: He refused all but the last fence, it was the biggest, jumped like the devil he was. He refused to get in the truck to go home - yes truck, open bed with stake sides. Normally he just leapt in. A couple guys picked him up and put him in! Next show, I rode him there to be sure I made it, took about an hour of trotting and cantering to get there. Poor little guy:confused:
We went to a number of shows with my next horse in that truck as well. I can still see him with his head up, over the cab, enjoying the wind in his forelock. (There are guardian angels watching over the horses.) He was a jumping machine, me with one leg in a cast and one in a rubber boot from Kmart.
1967, Victoria Riding Academy May Day Horse Show, Victoria, British Columbia. Run by the “Carleys”. I was seven years old. My mother had ridden with the Carleys when she was a child and teenager, and bitten by the “horse bug” while growing up in a “non-horsey” and economically challenged family. Carleys had racehorses, rental horses, did some breeding, did some jumping, boarding and lessons on school horses, and many local children cleaned stalls and did barn work in exchange for rides and lessons. Many of the children of Victoria rode with Carleys over a number of decades. It was a local institution.
Since my mother was always a horse lover, and rider, I was bought a pony when I was four. He was a 2 yr old Shetland/Arab cross, stallion. He was gelded, and my mother, a neighbour, and a local teenager (none of which had ever broke a young horse before), attempted to break him to ride. I was put on his back as the rider the following year. I was dumped regularly, by a bolting, bucking young pony for the next year. By the time I was 6, I was not sure I wanted to ride ponies any more. So my mother took me to Victoria Riding Academy, for riding lessons from Mr. Carley, on “Felix”, a favourate rent/lesson horse who had a docked tail. Felix was in his late 20’s or so by that point, and we rode and had lessons on the indoor " galloping track", a covered oval. One day, all the other horses had left the oval, and Felix thought he should try to catch up to a horse that he hoped was still there, and we had a good gallop, while Mr. Carley dozed on his shooting stick during the lesson. It was good.
1967’s horse show came around the following spring, May Day in Victoria. The horse show got coverage in the local newspaper. I was entered in the “12 and under Equitation”. Felix was lame, and not serviceable for the horse show. A family friend lent me another mount, a bay mare called “Phillipa”. She looked a bit like a donkey, but was very reliable and obedient for a rider whose legs were not really clear of the saddle flaps. I was dressed in a turtleneck shirt, jodhpurs, and jodhpur boots, and my helmet, which had a piece of elastic under my chin. The class was w/t/c, and I was the youngest competitor of about a dozen. I pressed my heels down, shoulders back, and eyes up, thumbs up, back straight, got my diagonals at the trot, and leads at the canter, as I had been coached. I won the class. I have video taken from the super 8 film shot that day, and a picture of me, my mother, Phillipa, and the ribbon. I still have the ribbon. I can’t post it here, COTH says that the file is invalid.
What can I say??? I was “hooked”. And it only got worse from there.
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My first show was a local one at the farm I was riding at (Lawton Stables- Hilton Head Island, SC) circa 1991. It was a few weeks shy of my 4th birthday and I did leadline on saintly school pony named Toyota. Check out the awesome early 90’s hair and 80’s hand me down show clothes…
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My first rated show was in Aiken in 1997ish. It was at the old harness track if anyone remembers that show. I did the short stirrup and was a nervous wreck but my saintly pony did his thing and I think we even brought home some ribbons. Me eq left a lot to be desired at that point…
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@dani0303 , thanks for sharing the photos! @NoSuchPerson , wish there was a photo of that day. This is a fun thread!
My first horse show was in 1995. A schooling show that happened at the end of my second summer horse camp. I’d been taking weekly riding lessons for a year. it must’ve been a hunter cross pole division but im really not sure. all I know is the pony I was supposed to ride went lame so I was assigned to a big dapple grey horse named “Hoot”. I was so nervous I forgot to tighten my girth and when I went to mount the saddle slid all the way under the horse. Hoot also stopped at one of the jumps to eat the green shrub underneath. I got one 4th place and two sixth place ribbons I treasured.0
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It was 1994 and I was riding my trainer’s paint mare. I was 7 and only started riding English a few months prior. The show was at the local arena which was riding distance from the trainer’s house, where I took lessons. One of his boarders decided to ride over to say hi. He came by before my classes while I was riding around the grounds, he stopped by and chatted with me then went on his way. Well, paint mare didn’t like her buddy leaving without her, reared straight up and I slipped right down to the ground.
Not sure why I was so far away from my trainer and parents, but the people near by were kind enough to catch the horse, help dust me off and get child me back to her adults. I distinctly remember my 70+ year old trainer saying “What are you waiting for? Get back on her!”
I did did manage to get back on and do my walk trot classes. I do remember winning some bucket, so it wasn’t all bad.
My first show was about 35 years ago. QH hunters. I shared a cranky gelding with an older girl (I would have been about 11) who had decided that he was her horse in that way young girls do with lesson horses. She made fun of my rubber tall boots and never bothered to suggest that I needed to put my very long hair into a hairnet and up under my helmet.
I did the Maiden cross-rails (which I think would be called Short Stirrup today) and did the course backwards because no one told me that there was a set direction. She sneered at me when I came out of the ring and told me I was stupid.
Good times. 
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