The Horse Show

Last Saturday was Lola's first horse show. She had been a bit nervous of this upcoming event, though her riding instructor and I assured her she would do just fine. She was so funny - - a few days before the show she said she was scared, but in the same breath she wanted to know if she could invite some of our friends to the show to watch her ride! So we invited Chris (my guy), Kimmi (my best bud here in Atlanta) and Lavinia (Lola's best friend).

The morning of the show we were there at the designated time of 9am to register, but as it turned out the registration did not actually begin until closer to 10am. Lola had three events to ride: walk/trot equitation, the obstacle course and pole-bending. She rode her favorite horse Apache for the first event and received a first place ribbon; for the second event we both had quite a nasty surprise to find out she was riding Cassie, a horse she had never been on in her life. So Cassie and Lola went for the obstacle course and after a lazy round of that and a half-hearted trot at the end from Cassie, Lola won a red ribbon for second place. For the third event they were again going to put Lola on Cassie (for pole-bending???EEEEK, the poor horse may have finished that event sometime next week!) but at the last moment they decided that Lola should get back on Apache. Honestly, maybe I'm crazy, but it looked to me that both Lola and Apache were happy as clams to be back together for Lola's last event! That horse literally flew around the poles and the trot was fabulous - - fast enough that Lola won first place in that event! So with two blue ribbons and a red, she was declared Reserve Champion for her age group that day!! She was ecstatic, and is determined to improve her riding even more!