Whose idea is it to get up at 5:45am on a Saturday?

Saturday morning was a repeat of Thursday except that I left Ken sleeping in the camper while I started the feeding and horse washing.  The filly was good about it – I led her over to the wash rack and got about half way through when Todd joined me and we finished lickity-split.  Sharon was handling the colt and filly in the halter classes this morning.  It was ATH day (Amateur To Handle).  She came to the barn dressed to show.

Again – my photography skills don’t do Sharon or the colt justice.

Once the halter classes were over Ken headed home to hang out with his folks who were up for the weekend.  And Sharon and I headed to the vendors to SHOP!

Since I’ll be showing Western Pleasure, and it isn’t something I’ve ever done before, I need to get show outfits.  Western Pleasure clothing is full of bling and can be very expensive.  Since I want to do this as inexpensively as I can I was delighted to find out one of the vendors Seriously Fancy sold consignment clothing!  I had been planning on having black be my chap color since it goes with everything, but Sharon had noticed a pair of chocolate color chaps and thought they would look really nice with my horse’s color.   Who was I to say no to trying them on?!

From there it was a matter of finding a top (or two) that would work with those chaps.  They were happy to show me a large selection of tops.  I think I tried on 6 or 7 different tops and even some show pants.  I ended up picking two tops, the pants, the chaps and a show saddle pad.

Shopping (and it looks silly in the photo but that's approximately how I'd hold my arm while showing.)

From there we walked over to the vendor Flanigan's to look at cowboy hats.  Wouldn’t you know they had a chocolate brown felt cowboy hat in my size.  And one of the best hat fitters around to make sure it fit me perfectly.  

A successful shopping trip.

I brought my new outfits back to the barn and shortly afterwards Ken and his folks arrived.   I had Blu in the groom stall again, and saddled him up so Todd could work him.  Toni and Bob each got to feed Blu a cookie and then we all stood at the rail and watched Todd ride Blu.  While we were watching, Uncle Al showed up, too.   (And that reminds me - I forgot to mention that on Thursday two of my lunch-buddy/co-workers came to see Blu (and me, I hope), too!)  It was so cool to have so many friends and family come out to visit.  It really warmed my heart.

Then it was MY turn to ride!  Yeah!

It was my first ride at the show grounds and I was really excited to mount up.  However, due to class timing Todd had to run over to the other arena so I was on my own.  Kind of exciting.  There were a few other horses in the arena warming up and Blu was keeping a close eye on them.  He was still nervous about other horses coming up on him quickly.  I didn’t want to take any chances with him (or me) having a bad experience so I kept him to a walk.  We did lots of turns, leg yields, and flexing and I tried to work with him and be mindful of the others in the arena (who wouldn't want a green horse to cause an issue for them either) and I think we did a pretty darn good job.  I rode for about 45 minutes and enjoyed myself the whole time (even during the brief sprinkles).

After the ride I did a quick fashion show of my new show clothing and then Ken and his folks headed home.

Sharon and I enjoyed a quiet evening at the barn.