Louie, Louie, Louie, Louiieee

I am thoroughly convinced that no matter how experienced a rider is, there will always be certain horses in existence whose trot physically cannot be sat. In my short time with horses, I have encountered not one but two of those horses: Vic & Louie.

I went to my first IHSA show today, and it's just like IEA, except, in general, the crowd is different. College equestrians are way different from middle and high school equestrians.

American University, our barnmates
I qualified to show in advanced w/t/c, so it was only one class. I spent the rest of the day playing dog sitter and photographer until my camera died and Coach took her dog back. *insert sad face* We got our draws in the morning, and I watched Louie go in one or two classes. My main goal was to keep him quiet because he is large and quite buggy but, fortunately, not spooky (HARDY HAR HAR THAT'S FUNNY CAUSE IT'S HALLOWEEN AND NO ONE LAUGHED WHEN I MADE THAT JOKE TODAY, SO NOW YOU GUYS GET TO ENJOY IT HAHAHAHAHA).

EL is calm. Just be EL.
So, yeah, all I had to do was stay calm.

And we know how that goes. I stayed somewhat calm, better than usual, but I did spend a couple of hours shaking on the bleachers before I went in. I personally would have wanted my stirrups shorter, but he was an 18hh beast. A combination of short legs, a super super super bouncy trot (they literally put in his description that he is bouncy), and rushing on my part made for a less than stellar ride. I picked up the wrong diagonal for just over half a lap going to the left, so at that point I knew I'd blown the class, and I just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Tbh he was quite calm for our class, less giraffe than expected.

Not my best day, but definitely not my worst, and Louie is definitely the tallest horse I've ever sat upon. He definitely justifies my 16.2hh limit.
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  1. emmaNovember 2, 2015 at 9:41 AM

    congrats on your first IHSA show!!! sounds like a tough draw - we had one of those big old bouncy beasts that would come play at most of the shows too... he was sweet but the bounce was rough!

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