October 08, 2006

first show!

Saturday morning started at a respectable hour - Swifty wasn't feeling well, so he stayed in bed, and I popped in the car and drove into town to pick up photographer/videographer Nick. We then went down to wake up Silvi who had obviously been rolling in her own filth all night as she was a little mucky.

Finished loading up the truck, gave Silvi a bit of a hose down and a brush then loaded her up and I was set for my first ever drive to an event. I wasn't too good with the brakes for the first little bit, but got better as the trucky truck warmed up. Silvi was really well behaved for the drive, and Nick got out when we got to the entrance of Bryants Farm and guided me through their shoddy gateway. Parked up and unloaded horsey who was all eyeballs out on sticks for the first 10 minutes. As I wandered over to the main shed I found that the person I was after in each class had pulled out, so all of my times were bumped forward about 5 minutes or more.

I saddled up Silvi and got myself dressed and did a nice warmup - she was so good with the other horses. It was really cold and windy too. My first test was a bit scary - Silvi was shying at the white piped arena before we even got in, then while we were in there a rogue plastic bag gave her a fright.


She calmed down heaps for her second test and I was absolutely wrapped with it. She was totally fine with the arena and with the other horses getting close to it in their warmups or competing alongside it. After the second test I had some time so I went and fired up the laptop to learn the next 2 tests.


I got back over to the arenas just in time to find out I was on right now- so quickly had another look at the test and then went straight in. Did what I think was her best test of the day (highest percentage, but lowest placing), still I think it was her best test - she didn't put a foot wrong for a baby horse.


Then there was quite a big wait for the last test and I was last to ride. It was bitterly cold and Silvi and I were both getting a bit tired of it all, but we stuck it out and she did another nice test.

Once the final scores and results were up I was really stoked. Her scores had gone up steadily over the day, and she got placed in every class:
Test T, 1st place
Test Q, 2nd place
Test 1.3, 5th place (59% - and I think our best one)
Test 1.5, 2nd place


Then we loaded up and went back to the farm, took Silvi's plaits out and gave her a feed with her heavy rug back on and went home to relax. Felt like a very long day (though it wasn't really!), but very worth it and very proud of horsey for her first ever show. Might be more photos later too, if I can get some stills off the video of the last 2 tests.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow, what a great weekend for you and Silvi. She looks great and you have her going really well. I always knew she had it in her. Well done and keep up the great work. I keep an eye on her website every few days and am amazed at the leaps and bounds she has made. Cheers Tracy