Things always seem easier than they are. When I first watched someone ride a reining horse, I thought..."Wow! I want to do that, looks pretty easy." HA!
I've been reining now for the past five years. I've had Nic, my current horse for three years and this year, I finally feel like I'm starting to figure him out. Believe it or not, horses are not machines and they have their own ideas about what should happen and when. Not that Nic is defiant, it's more that he, like any horse, doesn't want to work harder than he has to. He also responds to most of my ques, some of which, I don't even know I'm giving him. This makes for some weird communication at times.
Over the course of this past show season, I've made huge gains and had some big bobbles, but at the the last show in the series, things finally came together. I stayed out of the penalty box (not literally, like in hockey- we have to follow a specific pattern, anything we do to deviate from the pattern is counted as a 1/2-5 pt penalty, depending on the severity of the deviation) and managed to plus some of my maneuvers. I got lucky in my first class and managed to tie for first with a 70 (our scores start at 70, we can plus maneuvers and increase our score or obtain penalties or minus maneuvers and decrease our score- we all aim for a 70, which can be hard to maintain). I made some improvements and went into a class to school (practice without actually showing) and ended up with a 70.5 to win my second class. I came home with two trophies and a bucket of treats (Nic could have cared less about the trophies...they're not edible). Because we had some good scores at shows, we qualified for the NRHA Western Affiliate Finals in Nampa, Idaho in October. I think Nic is a little disappointed because I generally finish showing the first weekend in October. Once I finish showing for the season, Nic gets some time off... I think he's wondering what he did wrong.
1 comment:
Sarah, when do you go to Nampa?? Will Jarred go w/you?
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