Day 07 – 30 Day Horse Challenge – Your Favorite Show Ribbon

Hehe. Today further confirmed that Midnight is NOT the horse to teach Byron to ride on (one of my original criteria in my horse search that was promptly abandoned when I tried Midnight). We had some "airs above the ground" because OMG THERE WERE POLES LEANING ON THE FENCE...which we had passed about 10 times...but the 11th time they were definitely out to eat him.

Gotta love Thoroughbreds. It wasn't a terribly bad spook/skitter/buck either which is nice--it wasn't hard to bring him back to sanity. I went into autopilot and circled, circled, circled him, then we had a sloppy, but not out-of-control canter for a little while, and then once I got to the opposite end of the arena I pushed  him into an active trot. Then a walk not long after that so I could chill out and stop my stupid leg from shaking!

A couple people appeared out of nowhere as this was happening, which was a net positive. Good that they were there just in case, bad that their first introduction to me was my horse flipping out, good that they saw me riding it out like a BAMF.

On to today's challenge--my favorite show ribbon.

I have not shown that much, but I think my favorite ribbon was the Year-End Champion one I got at Swan Lake the day my horse fell on me when I was 14. I think it was Hopeful Hunters or Long Stirrup, something like that. I've already told the story here. To my parents' chagrin, this just solidified that all the hard work, all the expensive lessons where I never talked to anyone but my horse, all the giant flight animal spookiness...all of it was totally. worth it.