ICHA Double Points Show

Monday, June 15, 2009

So this weekend was the ICHA Double Points Show at Canfield, OH. Tom was of course taking Dalal and I had mentioned that I might be interested in riding him sometime. So they had a Ladies to ride class and the plan was that I would take Dalal in that. I had Friday off from work for a doctors appointment. After doing some stalls and riding Kaye I headed out to Canfield in the afternoon. I got there just in time to see Tom ride in the Amateur Arabian Western Pleasure. They had a beautiful ride, very consistent. We take Dalal back to the stall and untack him, send Nikki a picture of his blue ribbon to cause some trouble since she was in Fort Worth. And then we start to discuss who's going to ride what. Tom's suggestion is that I get on Dalal during the afternoon break and then if things go well ride him in the Registered Arabian Western Pleasure that evening. So we tack up Dalal during the break and head down to the main ring. It was a little bit weird to ride western I'll admit. And kinda funny, because Bonnie is always telling me that I don't ride with my legs tight enough. Well I ride with them way tighter than Dalal is used to! I asked for the jog and he took off. Lightened up my legs and we slowed down to an acceptable speed. It really pained me to pull his head to the outside though to ask for the lope. It's just so wrong!

So that evening I get ready to ride in the Registered Arabian Western Pleasure. I figure we'll just go in and have fun and kinda figure it out as we go. I had so much fun. It was an Arabian class so they did ask for the hand gallop. Man was that fun! Just put my hand forward and asked him to go. In the end we ended up 2nd. Not too bad, the horse that beat us was ridden by a professional trainer. As Tom said if she's not winning, she needs to find a new job. But we did beat a horse that has beaten Dalal in the past, so that was pretty cool.

I went home Friday night so I could go to Bonnie's Saturday morning for my lesson. As usual I was there early and ready to ride since I had other plans, and I never get to ride first! This really sort of annoys me. Elena and Ari both had their lessons first and then I finally got to tack up Kaye to ride. Bonnie has me put the draw reins on her again, which I hate. It's really just too much rein in my hands. We work on dressage for a while and then Rachel and Kelsey show up. They tack up Airy and Naughtie and join us in the arena. We work on centerlines for a while and then start practicing the dressage test. I ran through the test three times. The last one was pretty good, still some things I need to concentrate on, but overall not bad. At this point Bonnie tells us to head outside to school some more cross country. I just put Kaye away though. By then I had been on her back for 3 hours, it was 12:30 and I figured I had already missed the Adult Western Equitation class that I was going to ride in. Bonnie was a bit pissed at me I think, but quite frankly I don't care. I had other plans, excuse me if for once I'm not going to spend 12 hours a day there. No one else ever does.

I was right, I had missed the Adult Western Equitation by the time I got to Canfield. Tom had already rode both the Men's Western Pleasure and the Jack Benny, where he was first and fourth respectively. I did have the Ladies Western Pleasure in the evening session to ride. Of course it starts to rain by the time we go to tack up. And with the rain it got cold! So I get dressed while Tom takes care of Dalal. I put my zip up hoodie on over my show clothes and we head up to the ring. I find a tree to stand under for a while to try and keep a little dry. That at least saved me from getting too wet. Luckily by the time we went into the ring for our class it had stopped raining. There were 8 of us altogether in the Ladies class, pretty big class. I have to say I had a GOOD ride. Courtney was in this one again (she beat me in the Arabian WP the night before) She was my big competition but then her horse blew up on the lope depart. I felt pretty darn good about my ride when we lined up. But I ended up third, and no one could really explain why. Everyone was saying I should have won. But oh well. Tom ended up not feeling like getting dressed to ride in the Open Western Pleasure, so I rode that one as well. We placed 2nd in that class behind Courtney.

Ladies Western Pleasure

Sunday was the Championship classes. We decided that I would ride in the Arabian Western Pleasure Championship and Tom would go in the Open Western Pleasure Championship. I had a decent ride, some thing to work on though. Mainly Dalal was a little too much in front of the vertical. We ended up third behind Courtney and Tom C. Not too bad I'll take it for my first western pleasure show. So then Tom took him back in for the Open Championship. They had a perfect ride and won the Championship. Tom got to take home the trophy that Nikki won last year. So that's pretty cool that both their names will be on it. Back at the campsite there was some joking about who would be the first to get their name on it twice. My reply was that maybe Dalal would be the first to have his name on it twice, just with a different rider. :)

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