A Good Show And A Well Needed Chiro Appointment!

We had another successful show. The facility that the show was held at was only about 45 minutes from my house, so I was able to go home at night, even though all I did was sleep there. But it was nice sleeping in my own bed and not having to stay in a hotel room. The days were long, as usual. Classes started at 7:30 a.m. at this show, when they usually start at 8:00 at all the other shows. We made sure we were at the show grounds by 6:00 on Friday. The first thing we did was look at the class list of the horses that were showing in the morning, then we pulled their tails down and we sand and polish their hooves. Again there were morning, afternoon and evening classes. This show had things together, so there were no long delays like the last one. Everything ran very smoothly. But we had a lot of evening classes, so we didn't get out until 11:00 on Friday evening. All of our horses did really well that day.

On Saturday morning we didn't have any morning classes, which is very rare. We didn't have to get to the show grounds until 8:00 in the morning. So we were able to sleep in a little bit. By the time the afternoon classes started, we got really slammed. We had a lot of back to back classes, and we were hustling our butts to get all the horses ready, down to the warm up arena for client lessons and make sure every one made their classes on time. Then we had to run back to the barn and start all over. Thank goodness the show arena isn't far from the barn we were in. Most of our classes went well on Saturday afternoon, but one client had a rough ride. She has a purebred Arabian hunter, and he can be really hot. My sister even was able to stop by and watch some classes. And she went and got me lunch! Food! With the crazy afternoon schedule, I would not have been able to get away to eat anything, and since the concession stand was closed for some reason during the time she was there, she went to Jack In The Box and bought me a couple meals to tide me over. Thank you sis! I didn't get to visit with her for long, it was just too busy. I am glad she got to watch some of our horses show though.

Saturday evening we had a few horses showing in performance classes, then we had halter horses the rest of the evening. Our two younger clients were showing in the costume class together. One of the girls, S, was going to be showing one of her horses in costume for the first time. The week before we had been putting the costume on her horse to get him used to it. He had been doing really well at home with the costume. He is a 14 yr old half Arab and he is really spooky no matter where he is. He definitely is one of those special cases. I have to be really careful when handling him since he freaks over everything. We got the costume on him and took him to the warm up. The head trainer wanted our assistant trainer to get on him and warm him up before we put the young client on her horse. Everything was going well until one of those horses with a costume that had jingle bells all over it entered the warm up arena. It was loud. And then another horse came in with costume with bells, so now there were two of them. Our clients horse did not like that at all. He was having no part of that. He was spooking and trying to run away. He ended up throwing a show, so we had to run him over to the farrier. During that time our head trainer told our assistant trainer M, that she should take him into the class to get him used to being shown in costume, instead of putting the young client on. We thought he was joking, but he wasn't. Our assistant trainer has never shown costume before, but she ran back to our barn with the young client so they could swap the costume out, while someone ran to the show office to get a gate hold on the class and change rider's on the horse. By the time M got the costume on and ran out, the horse's shoe was back on and she only had time to jump on the horse and canter into the show arena. The horse actually did pretty well, but those jingle bells really did bother him. He tried running away a couple times, but M kept him under control for the most part. While they were lined up waiting for results, my OH and his friend M, who is really good friends with the assistant trainer, M, showed up. They had no idea that M was showing in costume. I hollered at them to come over to the out gate and had to explain what was going on. They were laughing so hard. M ended up placing 4th and 5th (this show had 2 judges) out of 8 horses. Not to bad considering the horse or rider had never shown in costume before! Now that M is qualified for regionals on this horse, the young client can't show her horse in costume. We all think that is a good thing. The trainer will show the horse, and hopefully next year he will be used to all the scary looking and sounding costumes, then the client can show him in costume next year.

After all that excitement, we had 5 horses that were in halter classes. It is actually really easy to get the halter horses ready for their classes. Almost all the halter horses took 1st place, and in the championship classes they all took Grands, except when we had 2 halter horses showing in the same class, one placed first, the other second and in the championship class they took Grand and Reserve. I also saw some bad sportsmanship from other exhibitors. One guy that was showing in a halter class with us, we got first and he got 3rd. On his way out of the show ring he was yelling "That is f***ing bullsh*t!". What a poor sport.

We have a client that has been showing her half Arab english horse for a year. She didn't have a good year showing last year. She has gotten better this year. On Saturday she received her first 1st place ribbon on her horse. Then on Sunday in her championship class, she received the Reserve Champion and a 3rd place out of 9 horses. This client is an older woman, and she was in total shock! She was actually going to sell this horse. Now I think she wants to keep him. She was wandering around the barn in shock saying "Did this just happen? I can't believe it!". That is what makes 16 hour days totally worth it!

I was totally exhausted when I got home on Sunday night. I ate dinner, layed on the couch and slept for a couple hours. I woke up, ate some ice cream, then went to bed. I had to get up early for a chiropractor appointment this morning. I have been having serious pain throughout my back, especially in the mid to lower back area. I have also been having a shooting pain and numbness going down my left leg. I have been putting this off for way too long. I do so much bending and lifting at work, that my back is just so out of whack. My appointment went really well. I really like the chiropractor. He is around my age and he explains things in ways I can understand. They had to X-ray my back and he had to find all the area's of pain. The X-rays showed that I have a really nice spine and it showed no arthritis or degenerative arthritis. It also showed that my left hip sits a little lower then my right hip. This could be causing the vertebrae to not be lining up properly and this is what could be causing a lot of my pain. I also have a lot of muscle tightness. I have to wear a lift in my left shoe or boot to bring my left hip up to match the right hip. I also got an adjustment today and I have to go 2 more times this week. I feel a little better today, but it will take some time for my back to be feeling normal again. I have been living in so much pain for so long, just the little bit of relief I am feeling now is so worth it. I can't wait for the rest of my adjustments and for when I can feel pain free again.

When I got home from the chiropractor, I went outside, climbed in my lounge chair on the deck and read the newspaper. I then closed my eyes and fell asleep for an hour or so. It was actually sunny out and I think I finally soaked up some vitamin D I have been seriously lacking!

This Saturday we leave for an out of state horse show. I will be gone for 9-10 days. It sounds like the show grounds are really nice. Even the hotel is on the show grounds with a couple restaurants, so we won't have to go far from the barn. We are hauling 12 horses over, with 5 more being brought over a few days later by our halter trainer. After this horse show, we have one more local Regional show at the beginning of July, then show season slows down. Finally! Maybe I can get some riding in on my own horses! As long as the rainy weather pattern stays away!