In this Southern life: December 2011

I just realized {a month after the fact} that I never blogged about the horse show in November! That's pretty shocking considering how much fun we had. I'm sure that this is going to be boring for anyone else, but I want to write all the details out so I don't forget them!

Dahkilah's new owner had him at the show, but since we sold him on terms he showed under my name. I thought it was neat to hear his name and my name together over the loudspeaker. It was one of my goals when we brought him home!

I drove down Thursday night after work and stayed with Brett's mother in Niceville. The arena was only a 20 minute drive from her house verses over an hour from our house. I got to love on Dahki for the first time since August. I missed my big baby!

I woke up bright and early Friday morning and was at the arena by 7. I had several friends showing in Halter and Dahki's under saddle debut was one of the first classes in the afternoon session and I wanted to spend a little time loving on him before he had to hit the ready racks. I was really impressed with how alert and calm he was. I think {ok, I know!} I was way more nervous than he was!

I watched him under saddle in the warm up ring and it was the first time I'd seen him ridden since July. I was impressed to see just how dang good he looked under saddle!

I'm proud to say that he did pretty dang good in his very first under saddle class and walked out wearing one of these beauties...

A couple weeks before the show I was joking around with a friend of mine (K #1) about possibly showing one of her geldings in an amateur Halter class. I hadn't shown Halter since 2003 and I thought it might be fun. Nothing was set in stone either way, but she did bring him along to show in the Liberty class. A group of us went out to dinner Friday night and somehow it was determined that I was going to show Sadik in Halter the next morning. This particular show only offered amateur owner classes so I had to register to show him in an open class. Nothing like a little more pressure! Neither one of us had been schooled and he hadn't shown Halter in almost as long as I had! HA! After dinner {and a few drinks!!} we drove back to the arena and K #2 worked with Sadik and I for a few minutes and declared us as ready as we were going to be!

I ended up not sleeping much Friday night and had pretty much talked myself out of showing. Pre-show jitters SUCK -- even at a Class A show. I dressed in my show clothes anyway and drove out to the arena. R, K #1's barn manager, had Sadik in the ready rack by the time I got there and promptly informed me that I had all night last night to back out but I didn't have any choice at this point! HAHA!

I think I remember bribing Sadik with his body weight in carrots if he did good for me! I spent a good 10 minutes scratching in his favorite scratchy spot while we waited to go down to the arena. He has the funniest "scratchy" face!

We went down to the warm up ring a few minutes early so I could school him for a few extra minutes and I started getting a little more confident. K #1 was showing another one of her horses so we were all down there cheering each other on. I had almost lost my jitters by the time our class rolled around. I can honestly say that I probably would have wussed out if I hadn't had so many awesome friends down there!

I handed my phone and camera off to K #2's fiance and he was my personal photographer before, during, and after my classes! {The show photographer was awesome and I ended up ordering some of her photos, too!}

Sadik trotted in the ring like he had it in the bag and it turns out he did! That boy knew his stuff!

We won the Open Geldings 5 & Over class and had to turn right back around and go in for the Open Senior Geldings Championship class.

Pretty snazzy, huh?! Not too shabby for the ol' guy and the way-out-of-shape-amateur-handler! To top it off, Sadik ended up with the HIGHEST HALTER SCORE OF THE WHOLE SHOW! Seriously!!! It was an amazing day and I couldn't have been any happier! :)

Needless to say, I'm working on ways to get back into shape and get into the ring a lot more in 2012!