On Saturday we went to one of our favourite shows;Gransden and District Agricultural Show. It's help in this small village outside of Cambridge and is a lovely well established show for all varieties of Livestock, I even think they show chickens there! We have been going every year for the last few years and always really enjoy it. It's well organised, has fair judging and a nice atmosphere. Unlike last year we were not up and plaiting in the dark as we decided that the riding horse class and the Retraining of Racehorses classes are just too far apart with one being early in the morning and the RoR classes being one of the final classes you can spend hours there waiting. Despite leaving later this year and only doing the RoR classes we still waited hours! They never released a rough time table so it's pot luck whether you arrive super early, late and miss your class or arrive when you think it might be and still wait 2 hours. The latter was us, we arrived around 1pm hoping that by 2/2.30pm the classes would start and we'd have plenty of time to work in.
We got stuck in large amounts of traffic in Gransden village and once we arrived everyone's blood pressure was up and B was a sweat box!
We got him uploaded and cooled off while he relaxed and ate grass and we soon realised that fellow competitors were getting dressed and making their way to the ring, so I got dressed for the In Hand class while Georgie schooled B and got him warmed up and soon made our way down to the ring. We needn't have rushed as it turns out there was so many in the driving classes, followed by a Western Display that we ended up waiting well over an hour! B, bless him, behaved so well and waited patiently and had a sleep but it would seem that long wait was costly. In the warmth of the autumn sun B had got a bit too relaxed so when we did get in the ring he was half asleep. No amount of clicking, clucking or squeaking could wake him up and he didn't have his usual sparkle. I was however pleased to still get a third place and a little bit of prize money! It was cool to do an In Hand, B and I hadn't done one together in years!!
After leaving the ring it was like a formula one pit stop to get B's saddle on and Georgie on board but in no time G was back in the ring for the RoR Amateur Ridden Show Series class and now with a rider on his back was a lot more perky and he had his usual 'sparkle' back!
Georgie rode him absolutely impeccably and he didn't put a foot wrong in the go round so I was really pleased this had been noticed with him being pulled in the first place spot for preliminary judging. Georgie came out and did a lovely show but annoyingly in his extension B just lost his footing slightly and his back came up. Luckily it didn't interrupt his flow and they finished their show nicely.
I was so pleased for Georgie to keep her placing and win her class! We've had a hard summer with it being so hot and the extremely high pollen and fly levels really upsetting B (he is a chestnut and from what I understand have much more sensitive skin that other colour horses) and Georgie has had a disappointing showing season so with this final win in the bag she really deserves it.
Sunday morning while mucking out I decided to take Erik to a final show for him after our disappointing Ashwell Show a few weeks ago. We plaited up in near record time and made it to the show in a bit of a rush!
Frustratingly there wasn't any where for show horses to warm up (the collecting ring was jam packed with ponies cantering around for the show jumping) so with only a small space behind some horse boxes and the call for my first class we made our way in.
I was astonished to see the ring absolutely rammed with ponies and a few horses; a total of 18 in total! This proved to be a bit of a disaster..
With nowhere near enough room for a trot and only one lap of the ring in walk each competitor had to line up along one side and trot down the long side... which happened to be next to a house building site! As you can imagine Erik had no time to get accustomed to anything and his trot was not on the bridle and very much in front of the vertical! I was therefore not surprised at all to be pulled in right down the bottom. After waiting about 15 minutes we were able to do our show but by this time Erik had got pissed off and didn't go well at all. Unsurprisingly we didn't come anywhere.
Upon leaving the ring it was quite clear Erik was going to be silly and the lack of warm up showed! We went back in to my second and final class without a hope really as he was tense and frustrated and we were pulled in in last place.. no surprise there and I was already regretting my decision to come to the show all together.
He did however do a less rushed show and generally behaved himself and I was relieved to get a kind third place!
I had a lot to work on over the summer with Erik as he gets very anxious and tense when other horses leave or go in another direction without him and he thinks he is being left behind or starts napping! Very odd as it's something he doesn't do at home so we'll see how winter goes.
Shame he gets so upset cause he looks gorgeous!
Thank you to Chantal for the photos!
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