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Phoenix and I are finally going to our first show! It’s probably been 15 years since I last showed, and at 9yo now, she’s never been!
It’s just a little schooling show, but they’re expecting 80+ rides.
We’re entered in First level tests 2 and 3. Training felt too easy for her and like she would have more time to look and spook, but second felt like it would be too hard for ME right now.

I’m excited and nervous. My main goal is just go have fun and don’t embarrass myself.

Please remind me though all the things I need to think about taking with us! Especially things that aren’t obvious but you have found useful!

My only advice is to get as much ready the day before so you're not rushing on the morning of the show.
Oh, and pics and video!!
Have fun!

I agree with Flight. I do as much as I can to have the trailer fully packed so that all I have to go is feed in the morning of the show and load horses. Good luck and have fun. While that's a super large schooling show, I find it so much easier to have fun at the schooling shows - I don't braid and sometimes I don't bathe the horses before hand.....and it never really matters. While my clothes are always clean and tidy, I don't wear anything different than what I do every day that I ride; soooooo much easier to be able to go in and just ride the horse

How fun, hope we get to see pics/video!

Last year I bought a stretchy waist skirt that can slip off/on over my breeches. Highly recommend.

The important thing is to have fun! You won’t need to bring anything than the normal stuff you use at home.

Everything said so far, especially about having everything ready the day (or longer before) so leaving that morning is easy.

Plan your time up to your ride. Time your warm up so you know how long it it needs to be.
When I'm grooming for someone at a dressage show or other show that has the gift of a known ride time, I always ask or plan what the "ass in seat" time is. What is the time when you need to be swinging a leg over and reverse plan from there.

For my riders, some horses are a quick ready, some need the stars to align and there to be no disturbance in the cosmos. They need a different amount of getting ready time.

For me when I was showing Jet, there was pleasure showing and hitch showing. They took different amounts of ready time. Hitch showing there was a long of hair prep, since manes are rolled right before showing as the horses need to be kept tied once their rolled. I had to do my own hair, which takes about an hour. So if our class was proposed to be at 5 PM, I had to be doing nothing but getting ready starting at 2 PM. Showing pleasure, less hair, more cleaning because I did turnout classes. That prep was mostly done pre show, think concours d'elegance class with horse and cart.

Showing under saddle, Spash is the spotted honey badger unicorn, and my friend and I could roll into the show an hour before the ride time, I'd unload while she went and grabbed the packet, I'd have him saddled by the time she got back, she'd get on 30 min before the test.

Milagro needed more astral stability, we'd get to the show no less than two hours before ride time.

Planning and blocking out times makes showing much more enjoyable IMO.

We’ll be loading and hauling to the show the day before! I’m grateful for the chance to settle her in beforehand since she can be pretty hot. My biggest worry is still that she’s going to get spooked in our tests. But I suppose that’s the point of schooling shows.

Apparently the show has turned out huge with more like 150 rides. That is not helping my nerves at all lol.

I still have to go buy shavings, and figure out what I can borrow from friends that I don’t have (buckets, muck bucket, etc since we’re stabling there overnight).

I’ll do my best to get some video, or at least some pictures! But I don’t know yet who I’ll have around to help me!

Don't over ride. Try to ignore that fact that you are being judged. Just do the things you do well with confidence and return to normal as quickly as possible after any spooks or mistakes.

Good luck

Reporting back with an update! The show was today!!
I am so, so proud of her!
We hauled out yesterday and she was pretty nervous at first, but we lunged, walked a lot, and let her take all the time she needed to acclimate. After that we practiced our tests in the show rings, and had decent practice rides.

Today was the big day, she started off really fresh but chilled out totally after lunging and never put a foot wrong the rest of the day!

Our first ride was in the morning, first level test 2. We had a fantastic ride and scored a 68.94 and won the class. I don’t currently have a video of it, something happened and my phone didn’t record even though the person taking the video thought it was

The second ride was a little less fantastic. We had storms overnight, and there was the threat of rain the rest of the day. The morning was beautiful and sunny, but the cold and clouds rolled in during the afternoon hours. My second ride was around 3:22pm and in the warmup we started getting sprinkled on. When I was on deck they called a rain delay and a pretty strong but small cell came through and lasted maybe 20 minutes. When we got back to the warmup we didn’t have much time and she hated the soppy footing. Cantering felt like a fight for every step- sluggish is a good word. Even so, we rode a respectable test, just with a few unfortunate errors that I think were largely a result of everything above. I’m not mad about it, I’m honestly just proud of us for pushing through the cold and wet and still pulling off a 64.72 and 4th place even with some big mistakes!

A couple fun side notes.
SEVEN years ago, I bought this Browband with dreams of it being her show Browband. Since then, she has worn it exactly twice before today for pictures. It made me stupid happy to finally see it on her bridle for real, and I got quite a few compliments on it at the show!

We also hired the show photographer. When I get the official images, I’ll share those here too!

I’m attaching my 1-3 video, the one where we make several mistakes. Even so, I’m proud of what we accomplished!

https://youtu.be/yQ3L4xrdG6g

Congratulations.

You and Phoenix look marvelous.

Susan

Nice ride, Pheonix! I love the steadiness and the correct, accuracy, poll high position. Just a note, you're leaning back behind the vertical most of the time, and I noticed your right leg is back in both directions, heel up.

Tanga wrote:Just a note, you're leaning back behind the vertical most of the time, and I noticed your right leg is back in both directions, heel up.

You’re totally right. My right leg is a problem we’ve been working on every single lesson, I swear it has a mind of its own
I’m really not sure why I was leaning BTV. I see it, It’s just not usually a problem so I don’t know what was up. Maybe a strength/core issue, I was TIRED by this point.

Congratulations. That is super! You two look great.

Congratulations on the great scores and persevering in a difficult situation. Love the browband!

That was fantastic, thank you so much for sharing, you inspire me!

Your horse loves and trusts you, what a great pair.

Finally got the professional photos picked. I ordered a print of the side on trot photo. I just love how they turned out so much!

We went to another schooling show this weekend and had very respectable scores again under a tougher judge. 1-3 65.694 and 1-2 64.8484. I have video but it’s very poor quality and not a great angle so I don’t know if anyone would want to waste their time watching The photo with the 2 blue ribbons are from this weekend.

Congrats! The photos are lovely

Isn't that super. Well done.

Well done!

Potters and I are going to our first show in 8 days... you are making me feel better!

Nice pics, well done with your tests!

Moutaineer wrote:Potters and I are going to our first show in 8 days... you are making me feel better!

You’ll do great! I hope you post some pictures and let us know how it goes!