The joys of jumping and Dressage..and weird judges

Do you know those people who really shouldn't intereact with people at all, especially kids/teens at horse shows? The judge for jumping/dressage was like that.. when we asked for clarication on the pattern he talked to us like he couldn't understand that we didn't understand the pattern. Oh well...people will be people.
Anyways, because of confusion over the pattern I got a white in showmanship, as did most of our senior class, 1 red and 2 or 3 blues. Nothing more. In the words of Kristi, our jumping/dressage superintenant, "That judge is a Dick."

As for Dressage, I was pleased. Usually I'm not pleased with white ribbons, but you know what? I did my test correctly, didn't get confused on the pattern or anything, and Okie was resonaably good. AND I wasn't the lowest ribbon out there, considering that there was only ONE RED in the entire class. I scored higher than a lot of other people, and I felt pretty good about how it went. Okie was extraordinarily relaxed in warm up, accepting the bit, nice and round and cantering good. When I went out for my test and walked by the truck at the end of the arena, something spooked him and he got tense. Which resulted in most of the test him being tense, but it wasn't too bad. I got a couple of 6's, he picked up the wrong lead once, but I fixed it and the resulting circle wasn't too bad. I thought the day was going to be worse because when I went out in the morning to feed and all that Okie had that look and attitude about him that tells you that you might not have a good ride today, so i went out and played with him and rode him a little for about 20 minutes, that helped so MUCH, thank you Parelli!!!!

I did Hunter Hack and trot-a-course for jumping. I probably COULD have moved on and did low hunter, buuuuuut, those jumps were like 2'6" and thats probably the highest I've ever jumped, and I didn't want to push okie.

Hunter Hack went well, my rail work was decent, not amazing or anything. The first jump was a little rough, but in the judges words "the second jump was very nice." My equitation wasn't too bad, and the judge left lots of comments on all of our comment sheets so that was really good. A reocuring theme was "use legs and back instead of hands" which I know.. lol, but Okie was kinda strong, and he said that to pretty much everyone. I got a red, and only one person got a blue, so I ended up getting reserve champion!!!!

Trot a course was pretty good with some nice comments on my sheet, the first jump my timing was off so it wasn't pretty, but other than that it was pretty smooth.

All in all, it was a good day!

Happiness is a warm gun.. or perhaps a Nikon d70s.

The arena
Belle looking gorgeous as usual, lol
Yea.. That butt is on my FOXTROTTER! Be jealous, btw, thats her snotty face
G-ma and Rhythm having fun.

Ok, so I stole dads camera today and had some fun. I want to enter some pictures in fair this year, so I took it out to play and get pictures of g-ma and rhythm playing, along with pics of the arena.

G-ma and rhythm are doing soooooo much better, I played put your nose on something with Rhythm for about 10 minutes, and it took him like 10 passes by the barrel before he would put his nose on it, funny horse. I like to play with him because he's a LBI and my horses are both extroverts, so its something different.

After gma and rhythm played I went and got okie and I wanted g-ma to get some pics, well, lol, she got like 2 usuable ones. I was having him jump the barrels several times so she could try to get the pic, and lol, I forgot that that stuff makes Okie frazzled, so he got a little buzzed, and then calmed down again. I worked on sideways over a barrel from both sides and it was MUCH better. I used to not be able to get this horse to do sideways over a pole, much less a barrel. I hopped on and rode for a little bit, worked on leads and that went well, then trotted around the barrels a couple times, had fun.

Yesterday something really cool happened. I was playing stick to me and he cantered with me!!!!!!! That was the first time any of my horses offered that, and I was really happy. He didn't do it today, but thats fine, lol, that it happened once is pretty much enough.