I like to take Snoopy to horse shows and compete in trail. He seems to love being there, judging by what I'd call his "happy energy" level, and believe it or not, I like that feeling of stepping into the arena in front of the judges and trying to do well.
No, I'm not a masochist.
Still, knowing Snoopy's limitations, I don't take him to a lot of shows. Four to five a year is all, once a month from February through August. Because we're both kind of newbies, we both perform at the novice level, which means relatively easy courses with poles on the ground.
I say "relatively easy" because they're still hard for us. We do all right, and it's tremendous fun, but we don't win a lot.
In August, the local AQHA division hosts "The Pink Show", to honor those we've lost and those who have survived cancer. As a matter of fact, my main character's horse trainer in MURDER ON THE HOOF, is named after one of the wonderful women we lost to breast cancer, Emily Jungers.
The PCHA Trail Classic is held at the Pink Show. It's three days of really hard trail courses (for amateurs only), and you don't know your placing until they give out the awards on the last day. Each day you get a little gift with your draw. The courses are designed by Tim "the Trail Man" Kimura, who designs all the trail courses for all of the top shows in the country.
I've never been in a place, skill-wise, to compete in this. It's entirely possible that I'm still not at that level. But for the first time, I wanted to try it.
I discussed it with Niki. The courses would have lots of twists and turns and raised poles - all potentially hard on a horse's body. I never want to hurt Snoopy. We developed a strategy that involved the chiropractor, liniment, warm-ups, and lots of rest afterward.
I won't lie, those courses were brutal. So many transitions from the jog to the lope and back again. Intricate slow moves like side-passing on a pole and backing around a corner into a chute. Here's one of the patterns.
"All I want you to aim for is consistency," Niki told me. She prepared us both as much as she could, then turned us loose on the course.
Well, we were consistent all right. Each time, Snoopy broke from one of the lope-overs for at least one step. Each time, our back-ups got done by the skin of our teeth. Each time, I had to ride every inch of ground and could not let Snoopy take charge of what we were doing.
On Sunday, after the last horse left the course, we all lined up and waited for the results. Forty horses had entered the competition. I thought we'd be somewhere in the mid-twenties. Names kept being called. None of them were mine.
At 19th place, we were finally called. TOP TWENTY! In addition to a bucket of supplements for Snoopy, I won a really pretty pair of spurs.
So I spent a day to prepare my horse, then three days at a show, getting up early to drive for an hour to the venue and working outside in hellish heat. Every day I dressed up in jeans, suede chaps, a long-sleeved shirt, and a cowboy hat to do this. My internal organs felt like they were melting and sticking together. My eyebrows sweated.
It was so much fun, I want to do it again. Hmm... maybe I am a masochist.
Snoopy and I went to a horse show this weekend, in Burbank.
It was the last show of our season, The Pink Show, which honors the exhibitors who have survived cancer plus remembering those who didn't. Everyone wears pink and the show does a lot of fundraising for the City of Hope.
The weather was supercali-freakin-miserable. In the high 90s. Hotter than blazes. A dress rehearsal for Hell. Hot. The horse show tried to keep us all in bottled water, but even they ran out. The first day I rode, it felt like the world was spinning by the time I dismounted. The second day, Niki got a touch of heatstroke. I'm saying, it was bad.
We did our usual classes, Green Trail and Novice Amateur Trail. It's a great combo, because our trainer, Niki, rides Snoopy in Green first, then I ride in Novice Am. I get to feel more confident, since he's seen the judges and the course and everything by the time I show.
It was a really good show. I obeyed most of my two major rules:
1. Ride every obstacle. (No defaulting to auto-pilot.)
2. Keep my eyes on my horse at the gate.
I say "most" because on the first day, I got him through each obstacle at the correct gait and on respectable lines. It was going fairly brilliantly until I got to the very last maneuver (isn't that always the way?), a back-up into a chute.
In the warm-up arena, there were poles to walk over at the chute's end. In the show arena, there were no poles. He backed straight. Then, in the briefest of nanoseconds, I thought, "Hmm, no poles. Am I done? No, we need to walk out." In that-much-time, Snoopy swung his hip left and tapped the pole with his hind foot.
Seriously, Snoop? Whaddup with that?
We got a 4th and 5th in the class, which wasn't bad.
But that was nothing compared to the next class day. I was feeling pretty confident. The course seemed easy. We walked in between some cones, then backed to the gate. I opened the gate and walked him through. We straightened and I asked him to back up so I could close the gate. That's when it happened.
He was attacked by a fly. Niki had sprayed him nose-to-tail, but a fly landed on the inside of his leg and Would. Not. Let. Go. I pulled back on the reins, but Snoopy kicked out with his back leg, trying to get rid of his tormentor. I wrapped my legs around him and pulled. That's when he turned his head and tried to bite the damn fly, slamming our bodies into the gate standard.
I pushed away from the standard and got him to back up, latched the rope and sent him jogging out, which finally loosened the pest from his leg. The rest of our course was as divine as I'd imagined. We hit every stride, our lines were great, and even our left turn in the box was smooth and flawless.
We coulda been a contendah.
It was one of those things you can't help or plan for and it was still fun to ride.
One of the fun parts of the show was the Trail Classic. I didn't participate but my friend Christine and her horse Bubba did. Out of 40 competitors, they came in 7th! So cool!
The whole experience made me realize how much I love showing trail. No matter how awful the conditions, no matter how early I had to get out of bed to drive to Burbank, no matter how much physical labor is involved (I muck my own stall, thank you), I still have great memories of it all.
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If you or anyone you know is interested in Snoopy's memoir, stay tuned. This Friday, we're having a special!
