Sunday, April 8, 2007

Winter Horse Show!




Morgan on Punkin, running junior pole bending.



A winter horse show? In April? In Louisiana? Preposterous! But that's what happened! It was so cold today - and didn't get above 44° all day! When you are outside - near a river - sitting on metal bleachers in an open arena - that's REALLY COLD!!!






Morgan had a clean run (didn't knock down any poles) and got a time of 23 seconds (and some fraction of a second - I cannot find my times/points notebook and it's too late and cold to go outside to see if its in the car).

Unfortunately, I didn't believe it was really going to be that cold and my long underwear stayed in my dresser. Fortunately, Steve did believe it was going to be that cold and he brought sleeping bags! Thank heavens for a prepared husband!



Brooke was having a great pole run until Morgan started cheering for her - then she knocked over a pole. No more cheering until she's clear of all poles! Brooke would have had a 22 second run, but received a 5 second penalty.

Delilah came with us. I was going to bring our weekend guest, Chloe, but she's tiny and when it was so cold, we decided to leave her home with Cosette and Abrial and the cats. Delilah enjoyed sitting in the stadium seat on the bleachers. When Nana came, Delilah gave up her seat and laid on a blanket at my feet. She is certainly interested in what's going on. And she did make a good hand-warmer. :^D


Because it was a holiday weekend, there weren't very many people there. Rain and cold do not keep horse people home from a horse show, so I knew it must be the holidays. A small show is good and bad. Good in that you get more points. Bad in that you get less money. Good that it was over quickly. This was very good, considering the cold!




Morgan running the barrels. Look at that dirt fly! Not bad for a 19-year-old horse! And a 10-year-old rider!

Brooke and Morgan both did well. Morgan placed out of the money both times. Brooke won second place in Li'l Chaps Barrels. And they both received points.




Honeybee gets very excited and a bit keyed up before running. She acts differently in an arena than she does loping around outside. That energy is good - but she likes pole bending better than barrels. She does well at both, but you can tell she likes poles better.

Look how low Honeybee is to the dirt! You want the horse to get low and spin her back legs around to get the best speed.


Second place! Good job, Brooke!

6 comments:

Cynthia said...

Ginger,
I'm just now getting to your blog so I didn't realize your family is into rodeo type things. I'll have to read further to see if you live in the country, have the horses on your property or board them somewhere... and well.. now I have a zillion questions (LOL) which is why it takes me so long to get around to reading new blogs... it's because I have to read them in their entirety!!! Which means I only get to a new one about every other week! So glad you joined the Project 365 loop!

Kristine said...

Absolutely gorgeous pictures, Ginger. How do you make the horse/rider so clear but the background blurry?

Unknown said...

Kristine, Steve used the sports setting so he could take multiple action shots.

berrypatch said...

I love looking at this photos, Ginger. One of my nieces rides, but English so, to say the least, it looks A LOT different than this at shows! :-)

Unknown said...

Yes, English is VERY different. One association we used to ride with had all different events and it was an all-day thing. They had halter class (Josh did that) in the morning, along with Western Pleasure, Trail, Walk/Trot, and they did have one English event - Hunter Under Saddle. Then in the afternoon were the speed events, like poles, stakes, and barrels.

Jodi said...

These photos are great! You can really see the action.

Brrr wouldn't want to be outside all day when it's in the 40's. Just where is spring this year?