Quattro's First Horse Show!

I am now more than halfway convinced that Saddlebreds have "horse show" embedded deep in their collective unconscious the same way other horses have "snakes are predators" collectively embedded in theirs. At his very first horse show, Quattro had his game face on the WHOLE time. He was an absolute pro, and tried his very best for us. I'm so proud!!

Our barn took (if memory serves) 8 horses, ranging from baby greenies at first show to seasoned professionals. The horse stabled next to Q had never even been in a stall before - THAT's how green we're talking. Quattro has already long since given me to understand that pasture board in the rain is NOT his idea of a good time, so he marched right into a strange new stall in a strange new barn with a look on his face that said, "Well, THIS is more like it!" He tested the bed by having a nice roll and calmly settled down to eat hay and spent most of the rest of the two days attempting to look sufficiently cute to cadge edibles off any passing human:



For those of you who are Saddlebred people and may not be familiar with this scenario, I'll just point out that H-J shows at Wills Park are busy. And I mean BIZ-ZY!! You really haven't had the full-on Wills Park Experience until you've seen all five rings going at once, with people trying to mow each other down in the warmup rings while trying NOT to crash into the infamous TREE in the lower one; until you've had to school at close on midnight and again before six a.m. just so you can work the young ones quietly and safely; until you've had to share the warmup rings w/ the maintenance crew on tractors trying to drag the footing (who were, actually, really, REALLY nice and gave us every opportunity they could to move from ring to ring while they dragged the ones we'd just left - THANK YOU GUYS, you are such a huge part of what makes these shows work!).

This is only one pic but it should give you the general idea: almost every square foot of space anywhere on the grounds has a horse parked on it!



Why are they all standing around doing nothing, you Saddlebred people might ask? Because here is the key difference between H-J shows and Saddlebred shows. H-J shows do NOT run on time. Not ever. Not even close. Trainers have conflicts from ring to ring, so Ring A will be on hold while Trainer A coaches students in Ring B, then Trainer A rushes to Ring A and Ring B is on hold. And so on. And so forth. World without end, amen!

So the one CRUCIAL thing that a young H-J horse can learn at its first show really isn't to perform well in the ring: that, believe it or not, is almost beside the point. The most crucial skill for a putative hunter horse is learning to Hurry Up And Wait. Because that break listed in the prize list as absolutely positively GOING to happen at 9:00 a.m. so you better be ready really isn't going to happen until around noon... As indeed proved to be the case.

If there was one thing I would have expected Q to have problems with, it would have been the Hurry Up And Wait. He's a Twinkletoes at the best of times and really can't keep his feet still; I really thought asking the lad to hang around for hours between four scary rings in a crowd of peeps and heese might stretch his baby greenie brain to the breaking point.

Ummmm, NOT:



I honestly was more pleased with that than almost anything else he did at the whole show! It bodes well: sooner or later he'll learn to be like HRH Avery, who upon arrival at any in-gate anywhere in America would simply happily settle down for a snooze.

Quattro also got to learn about that other staple of Planet H-J, The Last-Minute Add. You Saddlebred folks are lucky - you go to a show, you enter your division, it runs when you think it's going to run, you show in it, you're done. On Planet H-J, not so much. We had intended to show Q only in Green Horse Walk-Trot (ideal place to school a baby greenie). But he kept his wits about him and was so well-behaved that his talented young catch-rider Hannah (brave girl!) and I decided, and convinced Trainer Amy, to put him in for another flat class where he had to canter! So horsie thinks he's done but he's really not; instead he gets another x minutes/hours of Hurry Up And Wait practice while Owner races to Show Office to do The Last Minute Add and get the add slip back to Ring B. Then he goes in again.

Quattro would have been completely forgiven, in my opinion, for concluding that this Horse Show Stuff Is Nucking Futs and simply going on strike.

Ummmm, NOT:



Like I said: He tried his brave little Saddlebred heart out. The thing that tickled me the most was that my twinkletoed little greenie who really CAN'T stand still at home not to save his life marched right into the lineup in both of his (huge) classes and did the most perfect dressage halt there has ever been (Anky, you listening?) and the feet did NOT move!!

See? I can prove it! Even Trainer Amy was laughing at him at this point; he was just TOO perfect:



OK, so his classes were huge (about 20) and he made a baby greenie mistake in each one - a teenytiny buck in the first class and a teenytiny wheelie in the second, so we were out of the running, but you know what? He stayed sane, he stayed safe, he obeyed orders, and nobody got hurt, maimed or killed. And that is truly the result you want for a young horse at its first show.

I have, at this point, to give a shoutout to the other members of Team Quattro, who made all this possible:

Trainer Amy (seen here watching a student while doing the Hurry Up And Wait for her own class):



I am so very lucky to have found a trainer who likes Saddlebreds, understands the mentality, and is willing to take the time to work with the rather unusual set of issues the breed presents. THANK YOU AMY!!

Catch-rider Hannah, an exceptionally talented junior, who gave Quattro a superbly intelligent, tactical ride with the goal of just keeping him forward, light and consistent and staying safe, and who managed to fool a whole show ground into thinking the little horse actually has canter leads, when the reality was he'd been cantering all of three weeks, really didn't, and had never cantered in a group, let alone in a group of 20! Hannah is a young lady who is smart enough to realize that giving a baby greenie the perfect ride at its first show is way more important than winning ribbons. I'd go on and on about her graciousness and good sportsmanship, but I think the smile of accomplishment says it all. THANK YOU, HANNAH!



Last but not least - let us not forget the Horse Show Parents. Not just Hannah's - although I think they are pretty special folks for allowing their daughter to catch-ride a baby greenie of a breed that has the rep on Planet H-J of being "psycho"! - but ALL the horse show moms and dads out there who devote so much time and effort to all these wonderful kids and pretty much keep this sport going. This pic kinda says it all too:



In summary, I think we'd have to call this horse show a raging, roaring success.

Quattro, like all good Saddlebreds, is now on winter vacation and will be back in training in the spring.

The adventure continues!