Big day off the farm

This past Saturday I took Diamond to a gaming show with some freinds.
We woke up early Saturday, loaded the horses and headed out for our 2 hour road trip. We arrived about 30 minutes before the show started and everyone was in the arena warming up for the day. We got our numbers and headed into the chaos. Diamond was on overload. She didn’t know which horses to snake out at, or to swing her butt to, and despite the fighting between the mares overnight, she still wanted to be with the two horses we went with. She would start to trot to catch up, and I’d circle her back around and begin walking again. She finally figured out that she doesn’t pick the gait, or the direction, and was content to just walk along.
Many of my fellow boarders were there and Diamond took comfort from seeing her barn friends. She never did call out to anyone, but would keep a sharp eye on them when she could.
Knowing that this was Diamond’s first real riding outside of the farm, and that she’s just barely 3 and still has joints that are open, I had planned to spread my events out as much as possible. Since we were already in the arena when the first event was called, we did that one. As they called numbers for Keyhole, I sat wondering what her reaction would be to the white chalk lines on the ground. She has never seen anything like this before, and it’s the one event we haven’t practiced at all. As it turns out, she calmly walked down to the keyhole, glanced at the chalk, walked right through the runway, turned in the circle, and walked right back out and trotted to the start line. WOOHOO!! We had done our first event!!
I brought her back to the trailer, took the bit out of her mouth, put her halter on and gave her the hay bag I brought her. She dove right in and was happy as a clam at high-tide. I went back to the arena and watched the rest of the riders for the event. I kept glancing over to check on her, and I saw her big brown butt turned toward me with her head in the hay bag. About the 4th or 5th time I checked on her, her body was turned toward me and she was in the tack room. I raced over there because I had brought grain and a bucket of treats for her and she was eating them all! She had spilled the grain all over the floor and knocked the treats out on the grass after eating about half of them. I untied her and walked her around for a little while, I didn’t want it all settling in her gut like a lead balloon and giving her a tummy ache. After we were done, I gave her a drink of water and tied the lead rope shorter so that she couldn’t get to the tack room. Just for good measure, I closed the door.
Our next event was poles. I did a little ground work with her to prepare her for being ridden again, and we mounted. We walked away from the trailer by ourselves (Another small victory) and just tooled around for a little while. Since this show was taking place at the Rodeo grounds, there were some cows on the property. Diamond caught a glimpse of them and stood completely still, ears forward, checking those things out. I sat there and petted her neck, talking to her a little bit. I asked her to step forward to get a little closer to them, and she walked about 10 feet from their pen and stared longer. She was so interested in those cows, it was super cool. I can’t wait to get her closer to one and see what she does.
For our pole run, she basically refused to walk down to the end. She was really confused and wanted to weave through them right away. My friend came out and walked in front of her. She followed him all the way through the pattern and did great with someone to show her what to do. (Thank You Mr. Cowboy)
After that, there were a lot of team events, and we weren’t playing in those, so she got a good long break.
Our last few events came close together and I wasn’t sure if she’d hold out for them all or not, and I really wanted to do barrels, so my plan was to play the others by ear and see how she was doing. I would skip one if she was tired so that she had enough left to do the barrels.
As we all were standing in the middle of the arena, with events on both sides of us, she decided to throw her head around and start backing up. She would not go forward at all, so I took my crop and tapped her between the ears. She quieted right down for about a split second, then bolted and had a bronc fest. She bucked a few times and I went to one rein stop her. As she stopped, she also yielded her hind quarters over really fast. I wasn’t expecting it, and I slipped right off her! As soon as I was off, she stopped all movement and looked at me like “Hey, how’d ya get down there?” I got back on, and she was fine again.
We lined up for Key race and she was ready to go down to those poles. She thought she knew what to do, and went through the first two, then took a hard left to weave like she did on the other ones. After we all stopped laughing, I got her back through the way she came out, we finished going through, made our turn and trotted back to the starting line.
That event went quick and we were ready for Cal-Stake. She had no problem with this one at all, we had used poles and barrels many many times in the arena to teach her to turn around something and get a good bend to her body. She trotted down, made a turn to the right. I gave her her head completely on the way back, letting her decide the speed to go. She extended her trot way out and we covered some ground.
I dismounted and brought her back to the trailer for some snacking and a drink. I loosened her girth and gave her a good rub down, checking her legs for any swelling and soreness. She was sound, so we headed out for barrels. There was a ton of people signed up, and we were #35, so we had quite a long wait ahead of us. She had calmed down a lot towards the other horses in the arena, and had stopped mean mugging them or trying to kick at them. Finally, it was our turn, and we headed to the barrel on the right at a nice trot. We made the turn and she headed for the starting line again. I got her corrected, and we took the second barrel and she realized what she was supposed to be doing and went down to the third barrel, made a nice tight turn to the left and we headed back to the finish line. I hopped off, and walked her back to the trailer. I un-tacked her, gave her a handful of treats (the first she’d gotten since she robbed the bucket on her own) and the remaining grain I had managed to pick up from the ground.
We packed up, paid our bill, and hit the road for our two hour return trip. We got to the barn about 10pm, took them all back out to the pasture, fed them some dinner, and went home to soak in the hot-tub.
I could not be more proud of my little girl. She was a good girl, and we both had a blast. I can’t wait to do it again!! Diamond truly is "Tough Enough to Wear Pink"!! (Isn't she just the cutest thing!?!?!)

Our Key Race Ride headin’ down to the poles ~ she looks like she knows what she’s doing!!

Our Key Race Ride coming back through the poles ~ she went straight back through without trying to weave

Our Key Race Ride Heading for home


Our Key Race Ride crossing the finish line ~ looks like we’re cantering, but we’re trotting very very fast!

We’re just posin’ ~ Everyone thought she was so cute & just LOVED her!!


Our Cal Stake race ~ What a nice bend in that body!


Our Cal Stake race headin for home ~ look at that extension, we’re coverin ground now baby!!