The horse farm where my pretty pony lives is a boarders only barn. This means that there are no school horses, lessons don’t have the right away and every one has equal access to the facilities. Most people are pleasure riders, with a few eventers, a few judge trail riders and a couple of show jumpers thrown in for good measure. It’s a pretty good group of laid back friendly people. My farm puts on a games day once in a while. Which is basically a judged obstacle course. It was open to the whole barn and about 15 of us decided to participate. It was to take place in the our door arena (weather permitting) and there were to be 20 obstacles to navigate with your horse. Things like, walking though scary stuff, doing a 360 in a small space, backing up in an “L” walking over a teeter-toter, a bridge and a tarp. We had the option to either complete the course under saddle or in hand. I opted for in hand since this was Jezebels first time doing anything like this and she gets very distracted in the outdoor area, there’s just some much to look at! Couple that with lots of people and activity and I thought it was our best bet to make this a very positive experience for her.
We were 8th in line and when our name was called we completed the course in record time, Jezebel did every single obstacle with out hesitation. Well except for the water, she wouldn’t walk though the little man made pound. (too much like the mud hole I suppose) but wham bam thank you man everything else was a slam dunk! Circus pony wasn’t afraid of nuthin’ not the scary scarecrow, the blue danglers, the kids bike driving back and forth , the bridge or anything. Not the waving flag or witches hat, nothing phased her. Which was awesome.
I wasn’t sure how well she was going to do, since we didn’t get to practice much with was put out in the arena the week before and about 15 of the obstacles were surprises so I made sure that at the very least we were going to look good. We wore matching pink bows in our hair (her mane and tail) and I glittered up her hooves and we were both pretty in pink. Yes, I’m that girl. We looked awesome and my little pony did well too! Now what I didn’t know was that if you hand walked you wouldn’t be scored. I was under the impression that hand walking would be for reduced scores. Oh well, no ribbon for us.. this time. Next time though look out cuz circus pony is ready to kick ass.