Horse Show Recap--Friday

It was quite the whirlwind of a weekend. I'm exhausted mentally and physically and I'm very much looking forward to not riding or running today. I fully plan to just catch up on some laundry and bake Steven a cake for his 30th birthday. I'll start off with the trailer-loading since it's the shortest and easiest tale. Friday: Mort followed me right up with zero hesitation Saturday: We hooked up the trailer for Mort's dinner and parked it in a relatively quiet place. There was still a lot for him to be distracted by (vehicles and the H/J ring still going off in the distance). I did have to back him a few times but got him on twice and let him hang for a while eating his dinner. Overall, not bad. Sunday: We parked the same place where I practiced the night before. We placed his new girlfriend by the front window. He got halfway on and we waited a bit. I asked for forward then backed him. We got halfway on again and he walked the rest of the way. All of the trips went well and he seemed fine for it all. Now let's get to the rides… We got to the show early afternoon on Friday. We let the horses settle while we unpacked. After everything was set-up and we'd said a few hello's we decided to hop on a ride because there weren't very many horses in the rings. Mort was quite a bit more "up" than I expected. We've been to this facility twice and he's show in both indoor arenas. I expected some tension, but not the amount that I had. He wanted to jig and had a couple of minor outbursts (think jigging sideways and minor flinging). I did eventually get him settled down in the warm-up arena. We did a ton of circles and serpentines and figure eights and buddy boy started to breathe again. Once he was decently settled in the warm-up we headed to the main arena. It was just the two of us (thankfully) and I was able to work him through some more ring figures and get him relaxed. We even ended with getting some stretch and being able to walk on the loose rein. I was feeling confident that I'd be able to get him to the point of relaxation even sooner into the warm-up on Saturday and we'd still have some OK rides. I spent the evening hanging with friends and enjoying the atmosphere of the beginning of a horse show.