And now, the positives of our schooling show

Although there was a lot that went wrong for our team at the show, there were a lot of things that went right.

1) Bentley was great about being groomed for the show.  He has been afraid of wet sponges in the past, so we didn't traumatize him by giving him a real bath.  However, he did let us go over his whole body scrubbing at his stains with a damp sponge and a lot of cowboy magic.  He did get nervous once or twice, but seemed to settle pretty quickly.  He was also generally very quiet while we braided his mane.  He doesn't like to stand still... ever... but somehow he must have known this was a special occasion. 

We put him in a fly sheet to try and keep the stains off overnight, and for the most part he kept it on.  He did manage to find something sharp(ish) in the stall to tear a hole in the side of it, and get a nice long scrape on his side too (but didn't go through skin, just raised with some missing fur)  He also decided since he couldn't give us something to do in the morning by cleaning poo stains off his body, he would treat us to an extra icky face.  His whole face was covered in poo (even in the creases of his eyelids) resulting in a nice dark brown head and a light gray body. 

Doesn't he look pretty in his fly sheet?

2) Even though Heathers hands were blistered from trying to hold him in during practise, they did very well at the walk-trot class.  In fact, they placed 4th out of 9.  This was when he was first showing the slightest hint of possibly being lame again, so although that part sucked, he is a pretty enough mover to place well even though he isn't 100%.  Gets me excited to see how he will do when hes on top of his game, hes such a pretty mover.

3) We didn't do so well in the jumping (2nd or 3rd to last) as he was starting to show it more noticeably.  I hopped on him since heather's hands were too sore and took him around the 2 18" courses.  I was happy with how he did, he was not in very good form and wanted to go fast, BUT I was able to bring him back to the trot or collected canter between most of the fences which was the goal.  I cant blame him for being excited, he loves to jump and hasn't been allowed to in the last 2 months.  Besides, he doesn't have to be slow and huntery for eventing or endurance!  Fast is fine by me!  Poor guy though wont be jumping for quite some time with leg soreness :(  Sorry boy, we will have to find other fun things to do in the meantime.

4) I was happy with how I did in the jumping, I think my equitation has improved as captured in this photo Michelle took of us.

5) The show ended up being FREE!  My favourite word.


More pictures and video will come, they havent been uploaded yet from my camera.