Show Results!

So over the weekend Milo and I attended the first Reining Sorting show of the season at the Tacoma Unit. This was also Milo's first time showing reining (my second) and cow sorting.

We hauled out Saturday morning with time to get the horses acclimated and ready to go at a 10 am start. Since we were staying overnight, we got the stalls ready to go and waited for someone to show up at the show office so we could get signed up. Heather was only going to show in the sorting the following day, but I was doing reining that morning.

Everyone was able to warm up in the show pen which was great, because I therefore did not have to spend an additional $12 for a practice run in the arena (wanted a chance for Milo to see the arena before we competed in it). He warmed up well, was minimally distracted, but worked pretty well.

We walked into the arena to ebgin our pattern, stopping in the center to face the judge. Began our spin to the left than the right (remember that), loped off into our two large fast circles to the left, one small slow, simple changed in the center, two large fast to the right, one small slow, simple change in the center, begin a large fast circle to the left, beign rundown down length of arena, stop, back 5 steps.

Our stop was really harsh and he didnt sink his butt down as I know he can. When I brought him back into the warm up to get a good stop on him, I sat down and said whoa. He put the brakes on nicely. What happened in the show pen? It hit me: I didnt say woah. Wow Im special. Of course he didnt butt his brakes on, I hadnt asked him to.  

But Milo did a good job. He did everything I asked him too and made a Mom proud. Not to mention the first time I ran him entirely through the pattern was in the showpen. I didnt make him go as round as he can because he was listening pretty well and I didnt want to push anything. I really just wanted to get one good run under his belt (or saddle?) and then next month I can push him for a little more. He also wasnt quite as relaxed as he can be, but again, it was all for experience.

I waited for the placings to be called, and was dissapointed when I didnt get a placing (there was only three of us in the Beginning Reining class). So if I wasnt called out of three, I must have done the pattern wrong. Well thats weird, I got the pattern two months ago how could I get it wrong? I went into the show office to ask for the judge's scores. My walk was scored at a 1/2 I believe then from thereon out everything was marked at 0. What the..? I re read the pattern. OH. I was supposed to begin my spin to the right instead of the left as I did. Wow. But now I know, and next month I will begin my spins the correct way, and hopefully get a score. Thats probably the most dissapointing part, not getting a score for our go even if it wasnt recoreded for a placing. I just would have liked to know how the rest of our go was scored.

Because I was not the one videoing it, I dont have the embedded code to upload our video here. But here is the link to it on facebook (sorry if it doesnt work for you). Milo's first reining pattern. Unfortunetly, Heather's camera didnt have enough memory to film the entire go, but half is better than nothing!

Sunday was all cow sorting. We were entered in Green Novice only as there was a confusion on my part as to what the cost actually was. So I only went in 5 gos gor Green Novice. It was a long day of waiting as our class was at the end. We didnt begin until 4 pm. Needless to say, there was a lot of time sitting in the saddle waiting for our turn.

The morning started on a bad note however, as Milo was fidgety and very distracted in the warm up pen. All he wanted to go was scream to the other horses and stare at his girlfriend and travel buddy Missy. So that was really frustrating. But as soon as we were able to go into the show pen, he calmed down.

Waiting in the pen for nearly two hours and realizing there were a lot of more entried (86 to be exact) in only the second class (with Novice to follow before Green Novice), I decided to take Milo back to the trailer and let him relax and eat some lunch while we waited. Finally the #7 class was over and they were beginning Novice. So we got on. Still waiting about an hour and a half.

Eventually, the Green Novice class started. My first go was with someone I didnt know, as you can only go with the same partner once. Our first go wasnt very good, I think we got maybe two or three cows in. My partner didnt seem very pleased with me. Second go was again with someone I didnt know, and it was frustrating because she wouldnt get out of the hole when I brought a cow towards her. We got maybe two or three in.

Our third go was with our friend Cindy. I have video, but it is really short. I pushed too many at her holding and they snuck by out of order. Sorry Cindy! Below is video of our fourth go with another friend, Tonya. We were doing a good job, until I got ahead of myself (aka excited) and again pushed too many to Tonya in the hold.

Our last go was with our friend Heather. We were doing so good! I think we only had three more cows to move in, and as I was pushing 0 towards her (with 2 by its side) I wasnt able to split them well enough, and after a really good effort put by Heather to block the #2 cow from getting by, the sneaky bugger jumped through her barrier anyways.

But all in all, it was a ton of fun. These cows were much more tricky than I had previously worked with, which made it a bit more difficult, but also fun. These pens were also much larger including the hole, which made it a bit different as well.

Milo tries to get a bite of beef.

I just liked the light in this photo.

Milo says "Get outta my way, Cow!"

Milo doesnt know that we didnt get clean runs. He was happy regardless.

So no clean runs in the cows, so no points towards the series buckle for that, but it was ok because Milo and I had a ton of fun anyways. But I do hope ot redeem myself in the reining, I feel like we have a good shot at the series buckle for that.