by Leueen Willoughby  | horseaddict.net

Hello Dear Humans,  I am showing again. This time I’m going to the show each day and then coming home to my own room each night. That is the best really. I sleep much better at home.

There is another fellow, my friend Serry, is coming with me. He said he has not been to a show for a long time.  So he’s excited about it.

My  routine is that we arrive at the show, on the first day, Ma Leueen will take me out for a spin on the lunge line. This allows me to have a buck and a toot if I feel excited about being at a show. . Because I can not do that sort of thing when she is riding me.  Here are a few photos of me getting my lunging time.

Then I get to chill in my stall for a bit and snack on some hay.

And then ,on the Friday, we had a lesson with Coach Belinda. I really had to work hard. I mean seriously. I did.  But I got lots of sugar cubes as a reward. Here is my best friend the Sugar Man!  He’s Ma Leueen’s husband. He always has sugar cubes to reward me at the shows. Two at a time!  He’s the best. I got him to take the photos for this blog post.

Saturday  (I know you humans like to have things categorized by “days of the week”!) Ma Leueen braided my mane while I had a nice nap under the heat lamp.

My friend Serry had his human , Ma Folland, braid his mane as well. I mean we have to look our best at the show.

Then it was off to the show.  We settled in to our stalls. And , good news, my friend Carl was there and he took us for walks to eat some grass. I like Carl a lot! At home he feeds us every day … right on time.  Carl is a cool human.  Here he is looking after Serry.

When Ma Leueen  started getting me brushed up I knew we would be going to do our test. I told  her to do my tail so it would look beautiful. Well….I can’t reach round to my hind end to do it myself!

We got off to a good start in the test but suddenly,  out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. What? It wasn’t there yesterday! I got a bit distracted but carried on. But later in the test I had to go straight toward it. Good Grief! It was this huge blue “thing” and had people imprisoned underneath it.  Ma Leueen told me afterward that it was a tent to protect the officials from the rain. Well, it wasn’t raining and what’s the problem with being out in the rain anyway. I don’t get these humans sometimes.

I managed ,with difficulty, to do  my big trot going toward it but when we were going toward it  doing my flying changes the thing lifted up and flapped.  It was like a huge, hideous bird about to fly right at us and devour us. Oh,  it  was just awful. Ma Leueen gave the aids to keep going. I did my best but I really messed up that set of changes. But I made up for it by doing the next set perfectly when were going away from that THING. Going away from it I knew we were safe.

After all the other horses had finished their tests Ma Leueen took me back into the ring and my friend the Sugar Man stood under that tent thing  with another human and they flapped it about. If I went bravely toward it I got some sugar cubes!

We still got a pretty good score Ma Leueen told me. And a nice big ribbon. Tomorrow we will do the test again and I will  be brave.Ma Leueen has told me she will be posting on the blog about it.  So, goodbye, until next time ,Dear Humans.