Blog Hop: Showing

How Often and How Many?

Taking a page from $900 Facebook Pony, I’m going to discuss showing frequency.  I have never been a weekend warrior hitting up all of the shows all of the time.  When I was younger I’d try to convince my mother to take me to a lot of local shows, but they were still probably no more than 1-2 times/month.  Now that I’m all grown up (I guess), it gives me some more control of my showing schedule. 

Last year Mort and I went to a grand total of two schooling shows in the spring.  I’m personally not that excited by showing intro level dressage.  All that effort of showing seems like too much for killing it doing walk/trot.  If Mort had proved to be a nervous show horse, I would have hit up a lot more local shows to get him more experience.  He relaxed after about five minutes at our first show so that wasn’t really necessary. 

I think we’ll do more shows this year.  I have two in my sights this spring and a few over the summer and fall that I will probably want to get to as well.  We’re getting to a place in our training where I want to show him off (most days).  I will personally probably not average more than 1/month.  We’ll most likely show two classes each day.  Some shows I’ll show both Saturday and Sunday while others I’ll opt for just one day.  These decisions will depend on my schedule and the location more than anything else.  Most of these shows will be low-key schooling shows with (hopefully) a recognized in the fall. 

A lot of my personal showing decisions come from budget and schedule.  I’m not sure how people who work full-time have the energy to spend every weekend away getting poor sleep.  I also like to camp and do other activities in the summer, so not every weekend can be devoted to only horses (the husband wouldn’t appreciate it either).  I stick with more schooling shows because I’m on a budget--$50 versus $1,000 is a big difference.  Deciding how often to show from a horse welfare perspective gest a little trickier.  I think there are two major factors—level of difficulty and the mentality of the horse. 

Mort and I are currently working on training and first level.  Neither of these levels are very difficult physically.  Mort works harder at home right now than he will at a show.  If I were jumping or doing something related to speed events (whatever is physically difficult), I would probably not show more than once a month.  Obviously age/fitness of horse and how hard you’re pushing has to be taken into account.  As long as you take the horse’s fitness into account and the horse recovers well/quickly showing often is fine—physically. 

Whether you have a seasoned show horse or a 4-year old, every single horse experiences some level of stress at a horse show.  Horses are never going to choose showing over staying at home and eating, but if we make sure that they’re the least stressed as possible that’s a good start.  Some horses will always be more stressed than others and I think that those are the hardest to say how often to show.  More shows could theoretically equal less stress over time.  More shows could also equal more stress more often.  For me this would depend on whether the horse gets better over time or stays the same.  If it’s just a sensitive horse, I’d probably try to limit our showing.  Horses need a break every once in a while from the stress of loading up and showing too often. 

The moral of the story here is to put the horse first.  Showing should be fun for both parties.  These animals are not machines and they are not competitive like we are so it is our job to be as fair to them as possible.