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I have lots of stories! :)

Halter, on the way in, he was antsy.... wanted to chew on the lead rope, chew on my sleeve... well, he was just Chewie!! :) Entered the class last, asked him to trot past the judge, and he reared. :( How embarassing!!! Judge walked by & looked at each & every horse, then came to Chewie. He squared up about normally. Judge walked away from the group, came back to us, pointed at two other girls & horses "you, come out", "you, over here", pointed at ME, said "over there line up behind her". I walked over with the rest of them, stunned. That meant I made first-cut, which I didn't expect given his tantrum going in.

Lined up third in the row. Judge walked over all of us again, pointed at #2 and me, and said, "I want you two to switch places." Holy tar! He's lining us up in order! Chewie got second out of about 25 in halter geldings 5+years old!!!!!

Took a break, then later got him ready to ride. Trainer rode him about 5 minutes, walked over to me, and said, "He's good. Your turn." I crawled on, rode a bit. Walk, trot, canter, all good. Trainer says "You look good, he looks good. Let's canter a little to the right, and we're out of here to go wait on your class." I was coming down the long side, at canter, towards the arena gate. At the last minute, I realized the gates were open! Chewie tried to go out, I couldn't get him to think otherwise, and ended up shoulder in the sand. He stopped pretty quick, and just looked at me like "momma, what you doing down there?" As it turns out, since we were the only ones in there, one of the guys that works the show thought it would be a good time to drag that arena again (middle was still wet from TS Erin, but the rail was good, that's why we were out there). He didn't say two words to any of the three of us at the arena (me, trainer, or her boyfriend), so none of us realized what was going on until it was too late. We walked out in-hand, waited until he was nearly done dragging, got back on, and did some more walk & trot. I was ready to ask for canter coming down that same long side, when I saw four kids on horses headed my way. They were three wide, and I didn't see how I could get him through them... I chickened out. Showed in only walk/trot, and did okay... One six, one second, don't know third class results yet.

I've replayed it in my head a hundred times... I wasn't looking far enough ahead, the IDIOT didn't tell us he was opening the gates, or why he was opening the gates, Chewie took advantage, I was leaning too far forward to stay after him to make him turn away from the gates...

So, oh well.... I accomplished more in the warmup than I ever have in a lesson, which is awesome... just wish I could've stayed on long enough to compete at it...