Saturday, Cash went to his very first horse show to hang out and soak in the atmosphere. We went to the Rocky Mountain Saddle Club show in Wellington, which was nice since it's so close to us. Cash did great when we first got there and settled at the trailer right away with his hay bag to munch from. He stood there nicely while we groomed and tacked and stayed quiet even though there were anxious horses all around whinnying and calling. He got to lose the socks and show off his locks again--I'm sure he was appreciative that he didn't have to be seen in pubic with those silly things on.
We got to meet another fellow Mustang Makeover mustang at the show, being trained by Levi. If you look at the pictures, he's the bay horse being ridden by the cowboy in the light tan chaps. His mustang ("Remington", I think?) seemed to do great in the busy show environment. It was interesting to see our two mustangs interact a bit--it almost seemed like they knew each other.
When I first got on Cash in the warm-up area, he did well while we walked around a bit. Then another horse came into the warm-up area and was cantering around us, and Cash felt like this little ball of yahoo! that wanted to get out, so I got off and we did some ground work to get his mind back in the right place. He didn't do anything naughty under saddle, but he was letting me know that he felt like it. After our groundwork, he was much more settled, and we were able to ride in the big arena while people were warming up for the gymkhana events.
When we first got into the big arena, Cash's gate magnet was working in overdrive--that's the built-in device that automatically draws him towards the gate in any arena. So we went to the gate and did countless itty-bitty trot circles at the gate. Trot trot trot at the gate, then to somewhere else in the arena to rest. Pretty soon, he realized that the gate meant work and away from the gate was a better place to be.
Once we got over that, we rode around and trotted and cantered in the group of about 25 horses that were in the arena with us. It was a crazy arena! Having horses gallop past us and such took a little getting used to, but by the end of our time, Cash felt VERY settled and calm and relaxed. He really felt great.
On Sunday, we were going to go to the team penning event at Spicer Arena in Eaton, but it was cancelled. So instead, we stayed home and learned to lay down. Yep, Cash is now laying down. Not exactly on command, but I did get him to lay down three times with only a little bit of fuss. We'll keep working on that till it becomes easier and more automatic for him. I'll get pictures of that soon!
By the way, in case you don't already know, you can click on the pictures posted on this blog to view a larger, more detailed picture--that might help you find us in some of the busy arena pictures from the show.
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