Masterton A&P: Alfie

Alfie came over on Saturday with Mum, to have a look around and be ridden in the show atmosphere before his classes on Sunday. He was pretty good, and once warmed up he was even fine with the rides and screaming kids and everything else that comes with the bigger shows. He stayed overnight as his showhack classes were starting at 8.30 on Sunday morning. We'd heard that there was going to be a motorbike display around midday on Sunday, but turns out they needed to do a test run at about 8.15 when most people were trying to warm up! Alfie didn't seem to mind and even enjoyed watching the bikes:

The start of the flat classes was delayed until the bikes had finished (good decision, I think!), but a large majority of the showhack riders were not comfortable with the ring area anyway, and decided en-masse to move to one of the rings behind the grandstand. Pretty funny watching a mob of showhacks essentially hacking out to their class! Alfie went really kindly in his classes (only entered in 2).

I was really pleased with how calm Alfie was in the ring classes. He still looks green and young, has a lot of filling out to do yet - but he's really making an effort to listen to his rider and do as he is asked.

He came 4th in the Maiden hack (yay, his first ever A&P ribbon!), and did not place in the 0-5 wins, however the judge commented that he was a lovely horse - just really needs to finish developing and filling out. Alfie went back to the truck and then headed home to Mum's so that he didn't have to stand around in the heat of the day. His next outing will be a small sports day in Tinui just to do a few more flat classes.