Fuego's First Show: Days 2 & 3
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| The only media I have is of one singular round, so we're milking it |
My initial plan was to get to the showgrounds early and spend most of the day hand grazing Fuego. He grazed decently the night before and became more comfortable over time. During schooling, he was definitely spooked by people sitting at the edge of the ring. While our ring at home can get hectic, we don't really have lots of people standing at the fence. I figured if I could get him to graze around the commotion, it would help him remain relaxed once we were in the ring. It helped, for sure. He was definitely still more comfortable in his stall and tried to walk back multiple times. While his comfort was a top priority, the horse usually gets 12 hours of turnout daily. No way in hell I was going to cave on this.
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| "Why does my back hurt so much after I ride?" |
We hadn't used the warmup ring at all the day prior, so he had some opinions by the time I got on. I opted to wear my full show outfit on Saturday; it's all the things I bought when I was supposed to show Blackjack. It was cathartic to finally rip the tags off after nearly two years.
He still warmed up decently and gave some great effort over the warmup fences. The whole weekend, I was actually super happy with how he was jumping. My best guess is that the atmosphere made him want to be extra careful. I'll take it over his usual hanging knees. Pretty much all of my barnmates were grouped together in the 2'-3" divisions, so we had a short wait before heading in for our first round. The goal was to just get around and get over everything without completely falling apart. There was nothing about the course that felt like it required deep thought. I basically treated it like an equitation round with a little bit more speed. I used my whole ring and didn't try to slice anything or take any hard turns. I guess the hardest part was the combination; it was a two stride to a five stride, but the two was tight and the five was long. He was pretty good about whoaing around the corner and moved up each time for the five.
Not only was he generally a good boy, he went double clear and won the class. Which is just . . . Fuego, what the fuck. Do y'all know how many rails this horse pulls at home??? Especially now that he's realized he can still basically step over 3'-0" without much effort??? Clearly he needs a fire under his ass to put in any reasonable amount of effort.
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| Do not ask me how many times he attempted to break out |
The rest of the division went great as well. One rail in our second class and two in our third. We ended the day with a 1st, 3rd, and 4th.
By Sunday, we had both fully settled and he came out rather sluggish. The courses for the second day utilized a fence we hadn't jumped the previous day, but we had jumped it in the opposite direction when schooling on Friday. This apparently was not enough of a heads up because he absolutely did not want to do it in our first round, so we were eliminated. Second round, I made it clear to the precious little man that, yes, he is fully capable of jumping the thing he has jumped before. He still balked at it but went over it. Trainer T gave me a crop to just to push his right shoulder over. It definitely got his shoulder over, but it also gave us a turbo. The combination became a tight four to a long one. I believe we went clear in our second round but had a couple down in the third. Still ended the day with another 1st and a 5th.
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| Yeah . . . that one stride came easy peasy |
I am overjoyed with his performance. He exceeded every expectation that I had. He is significantly more competitive and has way more potential than I ever anticipated. Watching him become more and more comfortable over the course of the weekend was all the reassurance I needed to know that, so long as he has the right support, he's able to be a show horse.
In my mind, there is still some work to be done in order to grow his confidence in new situations. Remember, I'd like to do equitation on him. It's not a deal breaker, but he definitely didn't go around this show like an equitation horse. Time will tell. He's smart and could be a two ring horse.
Unfortunately, not much media from this weekend. I only have a video of one round. The vlog is on its way though if you want to see my questionable mental state at the start of all this.
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| "Is this edible?" |
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