we made it!!! And it was cool (mostly!)

Yesterday was really awesome. I was super proud of Sunny after I thought about it for awhile- he hadn't been with other horses since last October! OK, so we get there. Mom goes and pays for my entries and gets my number. While she is doing that, I work on grooming Sunny. Two girls from Red Horse Ranch walk by, Erica and Alyssa, and I heard Erica say, "Isn't that a Curly over there?" and Alyssa goes, "Yeah". And then Alyssa looks at him again and says, "Is that Moonie??" (Sunny's old name) She hadn't recognized him since he had grown over the winter another few inches and his mane is defenitely the longest it has ever been. She told me, "He's changed so much!" I asked her if it was a good change, and she said defenitely. Off to a good start so far!
I then walked him around for awhile, so he could check everything out. Unfortunately, I only walked him around the field area. Let me explain- The stable where we were used to be an Thoroughbred racing stable, and there was a track right next to the barn, and there is an outdoor arena behind the barn. Inside the track is a huge field full of horses. As I was walking Sunny over to the arena for our first class, a bunch of them came running over to the field to check him out- which majorly freaked him out. I have NEVER seen him so uptight. He started prancing next to me, holding his tail high like the 99% of the horses there who were Arabs. He was just barely in control. So I come around the corner of the barn with this barely in control horse, who is prancing and jigging like all getout, and it turns out they are holding the gate for me since I am the only one in the class. ( It was open stock type halter, no Arabs allowed, and none of the other Curlies entered) So Sunny comes sweeping in there, prancing and blowing, pulling me along (I only have his regular halter on, no shank or anything since I *never* needed it) and almost knocks over the judge, who happens to be the lady I took English lessons from for several years. Ooops. We have no trouble trotting past, the trouble is staying in the trot and stopping! So, after I took him all the way down the arena, and then brought him back up, he had calmed enough to stand for the inspection, thank goodness. We got first in the "class", our first blue, but I told Sunny I am waiting for our first under saddle now since we really did NOT deserve that first. I was just grateful we weren't disqualified!
As soon as we get out of the arena we have to come back in for the Curly halter class. There were seven in the class, but he had calmed down a bunch and actually placed sixth.
After that we had a long break. I took him back to the trailer and then relaxed for awhile watching some of the other classes, then went back and saddled him and worked for awhile hoping he would be better for the riding part! The next class we went in was novice walk trot, open, and there were 14 in the class. We didn't place, but I was VERY pleased with how Sunny was doing.
I was talking to a lady outside of the arena who trains horses, and she showed me some new things to try with him to work him in his gait and make his head set right (without jerking on his mouth like some people have told me!!) And it also turns out that I had his saddle too far forward, and when it was put back to where it is supposed to be, it showed that it was too big, since it pressed down hard on his back. So, we have the wrong saddle. Aarg. So I borrowed another pad to put underneath mine so it wouldn't put so much pressure on his back, and that worked some, but I will be needing to save for a new saddle. Probably a 6- 6 1/4 inch gullet size. I sure felt like an idiot for that! It turns out though that this lady (drat, I forgot her name and I know she told me!) trains previously abused horses. She offered to let me come to her place for a day sometime and show me how she works with them, which I thought would be really neat. I have been interested in rehabalitating abused and neglected horses for a few years, and it would be really cool to get some hands on experience.
The other classes were open walk trot, which we placed 6th in out of 8 horses, gaited curly pleasure, second out of two (towards the end of the day Sunny was getting sleepy and so I was having trouble keeping him moving!) Curly walk trot, fifth out of 8. I was really happy with how we did, and I sure learned a lot.
I also have to share some comments I got: from a lady who didn't know anything about horses but whose 5 year old daughter loves them: "That is a beautiful frost in his mane. How did you get those curls in? Did you use a curling iron?" She couldn't believe they were all natural. I also fielded some questions about their history and how old my angelic horse was (they obviously didnt see the halter class, LOL!) from a lady selling saddles: " I think your horse is the cutest thing here" I loved that one!
It was really awesome being back with Curly people (especially not being the only Curly at the show, the questions got spread out!) and having some real fun. It was interesting, in the arena they had music coming in, so it was coming at the horses in the arena. It was very odd. Sunny kept wanting to go over and check out that black box with all the funny sounds! LOL.
Till next time.