Wow, it's been a while...

I thought it would be nice to add an update, after just getting back yesterday from a three-day reining show, the Northeast Reining Horse Association Independence Classic 2.

I'd gone to a show in April as well, and we'd done better than last year, so it was a good show (I like to get better at things I try, after all) but I never got around to blogging about it.

So... to summarize: 

I got personal high scores in the "Green Reiner" classes, one on Saturday, one on Sunday, of 68 and 67. "Perfect" is 70; though you can be "plussed" on some manoeuvres, you usually are "minused" if you're in my experience level.

Your ride is judged in pieces: each manoeuvre is given a score. You start with a 70 and then as you perform a manoeuvre it gets a mark: 0 if you did it right, according to the description in the rule books (so not marked down); "plus" some value (usually no more than 1) if you do it exceptionally well; "minus" some value if you obviously are aiming for the manoeuvre but things didn't quite work out right.  If you forget one of the manoeuvres, you go straight to 0 from 70; similarly, if you do something in the wrong order, do something in the wrong direction, etc.  There are also penalty marks for when you do the manoeuvre sort of acceptably but some part of it wasn't quite right.

For instance, I got a 64 in the "Ladies" class, but I would have had a 66 had I gone about another foot before initiating the sliding stop:  I got a penalty on the manoeuvre of -2. I made sure from then on to zero-in on the cones marking the three-quarter and half way points of the arena.

I was also signed up for "Prime Time Green Reiner" which is basically a subset class in a single larger class, you pay as if you're in a separate class but it's all part of the Green Reiner class. "Prime Time" is a euphemism for "Old Fart". 

So in the Saturday Green Reiner class, I tied for 4th (out of 22) in the regular Green Reiner, but got 2nd in Prime Time (out of 8, I think: smaller number of people to compete against). I actually won a few bucks for each (just under what I paid to enter them. :) )

In the Sunday Green Reiner, I was tied for 8th out of 21, but got 2nd out of 7 in the Old Farts part of it. So another bit of cash, just under $25 (again, almost as much as I paid to enter Prime Time). 

For whatever reason, they scheduled Green Reiner on Sunday to be the first class of the day (it's usually in the afternoon). The pattern for that class was one I hadn't done before. So between the fact that when I get up at 5:30 in the morning I'm not exactly a bright and shining intellect, and that I'd never done the pattern before, I spent some uneasy time visualizing it while in the warm-up pen.

A little aside about Cinchy-Poo and warm-ups. Briefly, he's against them. As far as he's concerned, we really don't need to expend any energy if it's not the class. So I tack him up, get on him, and get an aerobic workout for about a half hour or more trying to get him to not four-beat canter. 

He can even tell that it's not show time when he's in the show-pen during the time that it's available to everyone before the start of paid warm-ups. If there's more than one horse and rider in the ring, he just knows he doesn't need to work hard.

The first few times he did this, I genuinely believed he might be tired, so didn't push him... and ended up with a fire-breathing dragon when it came time to show. I've learned better... but boy is it tiring.

Anyway, back to the second Green Reiner class and the pattern I'd never done before:

In the past, the patterns I've had to do have all been "walk or trot in to the center, spin both ways, do three circle in each direction, then do U-shaped or down the middle run-downs and sliding stops, roll backs (turn around 180 degrees), then on the final run down, instead of rolling back, back up". The direction of the spins (first one  to the left or first one to the right... always ending up facing the judge), and the size/speed of the circles (big fast, small slow, big fast; big fast, big fast, small slow, etc.) would vary - though generally if the spins ended turning to the right, you started the circles to the right and vice-versa.

The first Green Reiner class was one of these - here's my run:

For the pattern above, you're judged on manoeuvres like this: 1: spin.  2:spin. 3: three circles in one direction then change of lead to the other direction. 4: three circles in that other direction, then change of lead to get to the first direction again. 5: run down to the sliding stop, then roll back. 6. run down to the next sliding stop, then roll back. 7: run down to the final sliding stop, and back up.

In this unfamiliar-to-me pattern it was walk or trot to the center, then start circling to the right immediately, small, big, big; change to the left and small, big, big; change turning to the right again, go to the end of the arena, run down the middle past the 3/4 mark, sliding stop, roll back to the right (towards the judge), run down the middle again past the 3/4 mark, sliding stop and roll back to the left (again, towards the judge), run down the middle past the 1/2 mark, sliding stop, back up 10 feet... and then, while facing the exit door of the arena, spin to the right four times, stop, spin to the left four times, stop.

I was convinced I'd forget the spins, since they were "out-of-order" in my mind and as I said, I'm not exactly a sharp tack early in the morning.

But I didn't, amazingly. A few people zeroed (as opposed to 70) because they were so used to end a spin facing towards the judge, they just automatically kept going past "4" to 4 and 1/4, then going off by more than 1/2 a spin when they didn't readjust to the point where they were supposed to start and stop and do 4 the second time again.

My run:

So all in all, I consider this a really successful show. I won about $67 (ok, I spent about $150 on entries, but I did at other shows too, with nothing to show for it. :) ) We had good runs, better than ever. 

Cinchy-Poo, who I'm really getting to like more and more, was a Very Good Boy. He's definitely started to understand that I'm his human (and the jealous posturing between Tico and him can be epic when I have Tico on the cross-ties that are next to Cinch's stall). Despite some of his nippy ways - which I've reduced considerably by channelling the mouthiness into "kisses for carrots", which may not be intuitive, but it works, and he's much gentler than Tico when he does it - he is a cool horse with lots of personality.

He got lots of carrots, apples, bananas, and oat-and-honey granola bars, and was told he was a Such a Good Boy all weekend, I think he was pretty pleased as well.