The horse show

Today we loaded up the kids and horses and went to a horse show. It was a little horse show, a casual affair, a bunch of common horses, most all were haired up for winter and pretty shaggy. Participants were mostly po-dunk riders- hayseeds, also fitting nicely in the fairly shaggy category. These were not your slick, hip, and cool quarter horse type people with thirty thousand dollar horses and silver adorned saddles and pressed, starched jeans. We fit right in.

It was for all practical purposes Gracie and Charlie?s first crack out of the box in their show careers. We chose the show because it is low pressure, low stress, relaxed and mostly because it featured a costume class in due to Halloween season. We are not Halloween people but costumes are a great way for the kids to be excited about riding their horses and keeping the emphasis off winning and losing, or so we thought. Early in the week, when Gracie got wind of the costume class she started planning right away. She chose her Indian maiden outfit, which is a fake buckskin Indian dress with a headband. She would paint a white circle around her little mare?s eye. She can?t take all the credit for her outfit because I'm the one who came up with the suggestion that she should also paint a white hand print on the horse?s bottom. She looked cute as a button in her little outfit with her blond pig tails. (8 inchers) She rode the little mare that her mom and I bought as a two year old, trained and sold to friends for their little girl. We recently bought her back and she is as gentle and quiet as a fawn. She is a bombproof babysitter for our kids. Her name is Misty. The kids sometimes call her Pony Gal because of her small size.

Charlie had to ride old Henry for the costume class. Henry is older than God, about 27 to be exact, and he is bit of a handful. The kids can handle him if they wear spurs and show him who is boss. ?Leadership? is the term now used my natural horsemen because ?show him who is boss? went out the window because of political correctness and also because many people thought ?show him who is boss? meant to hit him in the head with a two by four. Mostly, it is Henry who provides the leadership and they do pretty much whatever he wants which is mostly the right thing. So he?s a good old boy who doesn?t owe us anything. He knocked around Grant County in eastern Oregon for twenty four years before we bought him. He?s drug calves to the branding fire and packed elk. Been hunted off and cowboyed off so now whatever Charlie throws at him is easy money.

When we arrived at the show grounds we tied the horses to the trailer and the kids proceeded to spray their horses tails with this stuff that untangles mains and tails. Then they rip their brushes through the tails like they are killing snakes. When they are finished the horses are missing a few tail hairs. This would just not do at the thirty thousand dollar horse type horse shows. But I think it?s neat that the kids mimic what they have seen their mom do, which is brush out tail, only she can do the thirty thousand dollar thing if need be. Soon they are picking out the feet, being all conscientious and thorough and I'm glad they are not sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons.

Gracie rides Misty around the pasture/ parking lot and Henry stands next to the trailer and whinnies and farts, those crackly farts that make me wonder if they don?t sound like dynamite fuses burning down to an explosion. Henry has never bucked hard with the kids. He bogs his head a little and his lope gets kind of hoppy, like he's plowing through ocean swells, but that?s the most he ever does. He really is a trustworthy old guy but he's a little work for the kids to ride. I've roped colts -big, old colts off his back and snubbed them up and drug them around and Henry has no trouble dragging a big colt around the pen despite his age. But it kind of takes a man or strong riding women to get much out of Henry. So it?s not all joy when Charlie somehow gets the short straw and opts to ride old Henry.

When Charlie was four he had way less fear of Henry. That first fall we had him we'd put the saddle on him. While I rode and gave lessons down at the arena Charlie would ride with me, loping right behind me and hang out with me . The other kids were at school and Linda substituted often so it was just Charlie and me and it was a neat, neat fall. As long as there was someone around for which Charlie could show he had no qualms at all about riding Henry and no trouble galloping around the huge arena with his feet stuck out to the sides like he was doing the splits because Henry was so round. It was cute but I think the time I got after Charlie for following me too close on my horse kind of hurt his feelings and he wasn?t so interested in riding after that and he gradually lost some of his nerve. Charlie's seven now and still rides Henry but mostly at a jog and mostly when he can?t ride Misty.

Charlie climbed on the old horse and rode him around but Henry was a little snorty and spooky so I made the command decision that Linda should warm him up for Charlie. Linda is in her tight jeans and tennis shoes and she bends her knee all Lady-like for me to give her a leg up. I take her tenny in my hand and soon discover its going to take both hands and soon she's squirming and struggling to get on this teeny saddle on this big old fuzzy gelding who, for all his supposed faults, stands still as a statue while the old hick couple gets ma mounted.

We took the horses down to the warm up arena and Linda decides to go for the warm up lope and goes to kicking with her white tennis shoes and finally gets the old boy into a hand gallop. He makes it a lap or two and nearing the top of the arena stumbles and almost falls down. Literally stuck his nose in the dirt. The saddle flipped up and the misses almost went over the top. So Henry was warmed up but Linda almost needs surgery to get that little teen kid saddle horn our of her belly button. The children and I are entertain with accounts of the incident throughout the morning.

Charlie climbs on wearing his complete Seattle Seahawks uniform, sans the helmet which he would wait to put on for the actual competition. The kids traded horses back and forth and they rode fairly aggressive, Gracie because her confidence was up and she is becoming a good little hand with the horses. Charlie is too, but he was in show off mode, which he thrives on. He?s chewing gum acting all cocky because he knew people were watching him and were impressed with him and his sister, these two tiny people, a professional quarterback and a mini-squaw who rode with abandon. Charlie dismounted once to stretch his legs and chew his gum and pull his uniform pants out of his bottom.

Gracie tied for first in this huge costume class with six other people. Unless you?ve seen it you probably wouldn?t believe the amount of people who would dress themselves and their horses in costumes. Charlie and about 20otheres didn?t make the cut but they were complimented on their outfits by the announcer. I'm talking grownups and teenagers and grandmas and all manner of frightened children here. Charlie was probably the littlest in the class. But Gracie came away with the blue ribbon.

I warned the kids, sternly on the way to the show about not getting caught up in winning and losing and ribbons. I stressed the importance of having a good attitude. They agreed they would just have fun. Of course all that went out the window during the first class when Charlie didn?t get a ribbon. Charlie?s horse also got attacked by a horse that was being ridden by a masked eleven year old girl in a Zoro disguise. Apparently he didn't like the way Henry looked at him and lashed out biting him on the butt. I thought Linda was going to jump over the fence and slug the horse in the face but she just commented about some people and the horses they put their kids on. Some of the horses our parents put us on would have eaten any horse out there for lunch and won a bucking contest afterwards.

So Gracie, in her little pink cowboy hat, showed Misty in the walk, trot class, navigating gingerly in a sea of horse-back humanity. I'm talking kids and grannies and teenagers and grown men here, some aboard ill mannered knot heads in need of a little ?leadership.?
Then there?s little Gracie trotting around on her tame fawn, who keeps her out of trouble. Gracie placed fifth in a class of about thirty.

Charlie told Gracie to make sure she stuck around for his class in case he came in "first place" he said, while performing a little cocky pre-victory dance. Finally, or so he thought, he would get his turn on Misty. His Class was a little smaller. But it was an equitation class and since he doesn?t know a thing about what the judge looks for in such a class, the rider is judged, not the horse; Charlie didn?t know what was really going on because we haven?t gotten that far yet. So even though Misty jogged around cute and behaved well, Charlie didn?t get a ribbon, so when he left the arena there were tears and the lower lip stuck out and we felt bad for our kid because he didn?t understand. Charlie stuck his lip out also.

Linda decided to let them both take a turn on Misty and enter the trail class. They each had their chance, riding through a little obstacle course and over a tarp that was supposed to be all scary. Misty didn?t bat an eye although the tarp got hooked around her leg once which is not supposed to happen because it is supposed to be fastened down. Neither she nor Charlie seemed to notice they were dragging this floppy loud thing around. A tarp around a hoof would cause many a bug eyed Cayuse to leave the planet passing through fences and barns and trees, but Misty was unfazed. Charlie and pony gal cruised through the course so quick he caught up with the horse ahead of him who was so freighted by the obstacle he locked his brakes and required fervent coaxing the entire way.

I saw both the kids? runs. Charlie by far had the better ride in the trail class. So I figured he would win the class and get a ribbon and it would take his mind off the fact that Gracie had won several. We waited until the very end of the show because the trail class was the last class for which the all important standings were to be announced. By the time they announced the results Charlie had long forgotten about any ribbon issues and was enjoying the game of tickle Charlie?s armpits I was playing with him. The kids wanted to go home but I told them just to be patient. I thought Charlie had won the class and I wanted him to get a ribbon- he didn?t care anymore but I made a big deal out of it: Mr. just have fun and don?t worry about the ribbons. Sure enough the last announcement for the day was for the trail class (ages ten and under) And Charlie came in about fourth and finally received his long awaited ribbon. The announcer made a big deal about it. I got the monkey off my back. Charlie was satisfied and I was satisfied for a split second until the announcer lady declared that Gracie Rawlins won first place.