Sunday and Monday at the Show

It’s Tuesday (the 10th) at 2:10pm and I’ll see if I can catch up from where I left off writing Monday night.

I’m at the hotel taking a shower and change of clothes.  Getting a hotel room turns out to be a godsend!  Not only because I can’t get the generator to start in the camper (which means no AC because we’re not supposed to plug in at the barn) but because I have a SHOWER that has incredible water pressure and I don’t have to worry about filling up the tanks in the camper.  Ahhhhhh.

Maybe too much info, but let me tell you, horse show life, especially at 100 degrees is a hot and sweaty thing.  Multiple showers a day makes it all possible.

So, back to where I was before I stopped writing last night.  I was talking about Sunday afternoon…..after leaving the cool arena I went to the show office and got my number (Lucky # 111) and found out Todd Azevedo Training was in barn 21.  Off I went to find it and lo and behold Todd and Darlene were already there and had unloaded the horses.  That meant it was time to start unloading the trailer and our vehicles and get our dressing/groom/tack stalls set up and ready for the week.

We had purchased a pretty new gazebo and plants and after getting all that set up and all our tack and equipment put away all of us sat down to take a breath.  Know what time that was?  

12:30am.  

Yep, after midnight.  It took from 5pm till then to get set up on Sunday.  Wow.  

But it looks pretty darned good, if I say so myself!!!

And that wasn’t even the night I started typing this.  All that was Sunday.

Next up was Monday.  My one day to sleep in.  Woke up at about 8 and after a leisurely morning ate at Mels at the Sands.  Ugh.  Wasn’t good.  Ah well, on to the Livestock Center for my first full day at the show.

No one from our barn was showing Monday – it was the last day of the “Last Chance Show” where if you haven’t qualified yet, you have one “Last Chance” to earn enough points to show in the Championship Show.  So Monday was a day to get to know the flow.  Pretty relaxing and enjoyable to be at a show a whole day before anyone of us has to show.

Once the sun set and the day’s classes were over the main arena was open so we could get a chance to ride inside, where I’ll be showing later in the week.

It was one of those “AHHHHHH” moments, walking down the tunnel into the HUGE arena with beautiful footing, a pretty center area where the announcer sits and the judges get to relax between classes, and seating for 4000 (I’m guessing – I haven’t looked up what the seating is at the Reno Livestock Events Center and now that I found out the Sands doesn’t have free Wi-Fi I’m not going to be able to look it up, or to post this, for that matter….)

Anyway, I digress.  Todd rode Blu for about 20 minutes and he was amazing!  Then it was my turn to get on.  I had butterflies and had to just sit on Blu for a bit, taking it all in, realizing that I earned my way into this show.  Wow.  I was there.

I won’t say it was anticlimactic riding Blu around.  That's not the right word.  But I'm tired and it’s more that it’s anticlimactic writing about it the next day, and not knowing exactly what to say to describe it.

But I truly enjoyed myself.  Blu was great.  And I was looking forward to the next ride.  Which would turn out to be Tuesday afternoon.

Once I was done riding there were more chores to do.  It was 10:30pm when I was walking Blu back to the barn after my ride.  Didn’t head to the hotel until 11:30pm.  Showered and thus it was 12:15am when I was last writing this.