OTTB First Horse Show Part One

Knight and I just completed our first horse show and here’s the play by play of the first two days. It was a mixed bag of experiences.

Friday Night: Cool School

Friday after work I drove from LA to south Orange County (not fun) to school Knight (very fun). Upon arrival I drove through a maze of small and medium sized barns, hotwalkers, jumping arenas, dressage arenas, and sun pens and the world’s largest speed bumps moguls to the barn where he and his buddy mare were stabled.

Knight was happily munching away on hay in the rented box stall. The first thing my trainer said was, “We’re not jumping him.” She had ridden him earlier in the day and said he was good but not relaxed. He was really amped. She advised we’d take him in as many flat classes as possible to get him out and about and make it easy for him.

I was down with that plan, and so we led him over the gravel path and through the deserty reeds of a private showbarn to Grandmother’s house the showgrounds. (There were still technically no stalls available, but we were able to rent stalls at a neighboring farm, hence the little trek to the show arena).

A few riders practiced warm up rounds in the covered arena where I’d be riding the next day so we schooled in an outdoor side arena where a little girl was having a heck of a time riding a small chestnut.

Knight schooled brilliantly. He felt relaxed and I had a ball. It was that fun feeling of “Wheee!” While practicing baby verticals the little girl came off due to her horse’s spunkiness and Knight was either oblivious to the theatrics or just didn’t really care. I was also impressed he didn’t bat an eyelash at the pit o’ manure which was adjacent to the arena.

I had a good feeling about Saturday and was thinking we’d duplicate our carefree walk, cute trot, and Valegro canter the next day (ha ha).

Saturday: More Schooling, No Showing

Saturday morning I was reintroduced to the horse show concept of “hurry up and wait.” My trainer had lunged Knight for about 20 minutes earlier in the day and when I hopped on around 1:00 ish (I arrived at 9), I didn’t really hop on. Knight the Docile was too nervous and would not stand still, prancing and back up at the mounting block. I asked my trainer to hop on him first as in that moment my OTTB was too much horse for me.

She made it look easy to manage a horse-show first timer, commenting on how the announcer on the PA system and the clapping was triggering a PTSD-like response. It hadn’t occurred to me that the last time he had probably heard those noises was at the track! No wonder he was a different horse! I assumed his calm and cool demeanor from Friday would carry over to the rest of the weekend. Not so.

My trainer worked Knight for quite a while both in the covered warm-up ring which would most closely simulate the actual show ring, and in the “stall waste”-adjacent ring and then walking him up and down the pathways between all the arenas.

There was one point when I noticed his eyes were literally bugging out. He was behaving and trotting and cantering, but his facial expression was something I had never seen before. Normally when he’s ridden he looks happy. This was a worried face. He looked like a wide-eyed cartoon version of himself.

I then mounted and schooled in the covered arena. Knight was a coiled spring. I finally was able to replicate the way of going my trainer had modeled for me earlier. Horses cantered past us from both directions and schooled over the warm up fences. I kept talking to him and finally was able to get a few circles of somewhat stretchy trot and not-crazed canter. I honestly felt like I rode well and confidently, but it was not an enjoyable ride. That Friday feeling was gone.

A pigeon dive bombed in front of Knight’s face as we trotted and he didn’t respond. He was trying really hard to listen to me.

I pulled Knight up and went to stand in the middle. My trainer asked how I felt and I said, “I’m fine, but this is not fun. I feel like I’m not nervous even though he is.” She affirmed that I was riding pretty relaxed, but it was like all the stimuli was too much for Knight.

I don’t remember who suggested scratching the three classes first, but I said I am in this for the fun and neither Knight or I were having fun and I didn’t see the point. “We’ll just use this as exposure. He’s being so good with all the other horses cantering past. And this is a baseline.” I said something else like we have the rest of our lives together and there was no deadline.

And so we took him back to the stall and let him get back to his hay and carrots. Sunday would turn out to be a completely different experience from both Friday and Saturday.

Check back in for Part Two and the Big Reveal of our results.

Comments: Has anyone else had a horse arrive calm on Day One and then get more amped as the weekend progressed? I’d also be interested in first-time OTTB stories at horse shows and tips for obedient, but worried horses. (Knight lost weight during the weekend too). 

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