Sunday at DAHA

Just realized I didn't post about the last day of the show.  Guess my camera's death rattled me.  :-)

Sunday was anti-climactic.  We ended up scratching our one Championship class literally right before we were going to go in the arena.

The day started well enough.  I was up at 6am feeding the horses and had time to go back to the camper and actually eat breakfast (first time all show I'd gotten to eat breakfast - even though all it was, was cereal!).  I got back to the barn about 7:30am and had plenty of time to get Blu saddled and ready.  Todd got on Blu to warm him up and see how he was doing.  They had a nice ride so I brought Blu back to the barn and kept him in his stall, tied so he could eat and drink but not roll (he still had his show saddle on and we DEFINITELY don't want him to roll with the saddle on).  Todd worked with Laura and Echo (they were showing in the class immediately before mine) and I mounted up and joined them in the warm up arena two classes before my class was scheduled to go in.  However Blu was done.

He was tired and was balking when I was trying to get him to lope.  He just didn't want to, and while we don't normally let him get away with things, in this case it seemed the better part of valor to go with it.  Our number one priority this year was to ensure that Blu did not get scared or hurt.  We don't want to have him confused by anything if we can help it, either.  And having a struggle in front of the judge and a bad ride was to be avoided if possible.  It would leave a bad memory with Blu and since it was the last class of the show and our last show of the season he would have all winter to remember it and by the spring when we go to our first show we wouldn't know if he'd act up that way again.

So, as I said, the better part of valor was to scratch.  Bummer, but truly I was 100% ok with it.

Suddenly I had the rest of the show "free" - Laura was in a couple classes with Echo and while they were in their classes Ken and I started work on packing up.  When Laura and John and Todd got back to the barn after her class Ken went to pack up the camper and the rest of us dismantled the barn.

We were finished with the show and pulled out with the trailer at 1:30pm.  A couple hours earlier than we'd planned.  And since this was a local show for me I was home shortly after 2pm.

Exhausted.

The long days took quite a lot out of me.  It took me a couple days to recover.  Of course I still had to go to work.  Have to pay for this somehow!