A Series of Unfortunate Events

ass

aka "SB and Courage try to go to a dressage show"

As a part of the "get this damn horse broke" initiative I've been participating in this year, I signed Courage up for 4 shows in three weeks: event derby, schooling show, event derby, dressage show.

I somewhat-optimistically thought that despite not cantering at any of the first three shows (except two half circles on intro C), we'd be all set for our training level dressage debut at a recognized dressage show within three weeks of our first show of the year, which was Courage's third show. Ever.

a long ways from this

So. We prepared as best we could, and with images of glory (or at least achieved goals) dancing in my head, I led Courage onto the trailer Saturday morning.

Or that is.

I walked on to the trailer then turned around to see my horse still on solid ground and we spent the next 20 minutes having a massive temper tantrum/meltdown about not getting on the trailer.

Now.

I know hauling safety dictates that horses should always haul in leather halters in case of an accident and I totally agree with that.

just the warmup

But we were also going like 30 minutes down the road and then he was going to have to stand tied for a couple hours, so I had him in the bad boy tying rope halter.

and I am SO GLAD I did.

Because I finally got him in. Latched the divider. Tied his rope.

And homeboy SLAMMED backwards, popped the divider out, and SAT his ass back against the rope. Bless you western folk and your nylon rope halters--my set up held. Courage never made it off the trailer, got his ass kicked back into his stall, the divider re-installed, his halter changed out through the window so I could untie the first one (with a hoof pick), and his buddy loaded behind him.

yeah bonnet for a reason

And then neither of us dared think too loud about what would happen to said buddy if shithead tried that maneuver again with her in the back of the trailer.

The trailer rocked all the way to the show, but both horses were still in their respective stalls when we arrived.

So we unloaded.

heads don't have to be symmetrical

Which is when I saw that in all his thrashing, Courage ripped the ever-loving shit out of his face and tore up his front legs and everything was already starting to swell. There was even blood in his mouth. Fan-freaking-tastic, horse. Good job.

I cold hosed his legs for a while, but there wasn't a lot to be done for his now-very-asymmetrical head. Which was sensitive to the touch. You know, right where a browband would go.

I texted Alyssa not to come, very nearly canceled on my kind friend who offered to braid, and left homeboy tied to the trailer so I could wander off and take in the sights.

Alyssa showed up anyways. My friend did a lovely job braiding and Courage was actually super quiet for her. About an hour before our ride time, I thought I should attempt to tack up and see if Courage could even handle a fly bonnet, much less a bridle. Or if he'd be sound. Or if we'd get disqualified for blood showing.

how everyone wants to spend the warm up

He didn't fuss too much about the bridle, so we headed off to warm up. About 40 minutes in to what was shaping up to be a perfectly fine warm up for a horse at his first real dressage show (and 10 minutes before our ride time), I heard: "clink. Clink. CLINK."

That doesn't take a genius. I hopped off and yeah. Courage's right front shoe was hanging on by a nail, half off his foot, and definitely still too attached to just pull off with my bare hands.

free walk

And I threw in the cosmic towel. The fact that we survived to this point was remarkable enough. Here I looked like some sort of horse abuser who barely made it on time and now we're losing shoes at the walk? It wasn't meant to be. I mean, at least I got to use my grounds fee and I only wasted half as much money as I did on the clinic we couldn't go to, right?

Alyssa and my braider friend held Courage while I scoured up someone who could pull a shoe. It was a fantastic older Austrian guy who's been around horses longer than my parents have been alive. He got the shoe off, then looked at Courage and said, "You are not hurt enough to get out of work today. You have to go back to work." 

not here yet

Ugh. Cosmic towel IN MY FACE.

I climbed back on. We trotted around the warm up. Courage actually felt slightly calmer and more relaxed than he did with four shoes, and I got independent verification that he looked sound. Worst case scenario, the judge rings the bell and is like "Do you know your horse is lame?" and I'm like "I'd honestly be shocked if he wasn't."

So in we go.

I have to say--the event derbies prepared us really well for the whole "leave the warm up crowd and go off on your own" part. Courage was a little tense, but he didn't even look at the judge's booth (tent on top of a flatbed trailer) very hard.

Our test was ok. We had decent moments and giraffe moments. He could have been more forward and relaxed, but we stayed in the ring and it was fine.

yeah pretty proud of this

I rode him back to the trailer, slid off, and declared that was enough and I wasn't going to wait an hour to ride my second test.

And then Redheadlins was like "you know, you really should" and our dressage trainer was like "I would if I were you" and somehow we'd wasted enough time that my ride was 20 minutes out. I bridled Courage back up. Ambled out to the warm up. Ambled around the warm up. Took a few deep breaths. And then heard the announcer say I was entering the arena, so we trotted to the gate and headed to the show ring.

right lead canter. down the long side.

I determined that if I was going to ride this test, I was going to do it better than the last one. I pushed my hands forward, put my leg ON, and when the judge rang the bell, we were ready. Things were shaping up pretty well until we did our medium walk across the short diagonal. Both Courage and I took a look into the field beside the ring, and OH YES, they were showing screaming spotted stallions in hand. The middle of my test seemed like a good time to start, apparently.

And I had this moment of "either we can look at that or I can ride the hell out of the freewalk on the next short diagonal".

And goddamn, we nailed a 7 on that freewalk. Makin' that coefficient my bitch.

That last salute felt so good. Also good: hacking my battered war horse in three shoes back to the trailer on a loose rein and knowing that whatever happened in the scoring, Courage and I put forth a solid effort through considerable adversity and I was proud of what we'd done that day.

now with ribbons

I took my time rinsing and unbraiding Courage, then left him with his hay net and went to get scores. We snagged a 64.1% and second place (out of two) in training 1, our first test. I played on my phone and tried to not linger awkwardly for a few minutes while I waited for training 2.

67% AND FIRST PLACE IN A CLASS OF 4!!! ERMEGERD!!!! One of our "reach goals" for this year was 65% at training level AND GUESS WHO NAILED IT WITH A REAL JUDGE AT A REAL SHOW???

And then it only took about 3 minutes to convince my champion dressage horse to get back on the trailer and go home.

And that is how we do dressage.