Equifest

Went to Equifest last Saturday and had a blast. Looked at an 18" saddle but couldn't justify spending $800 on an impulse buy. There were demonstrations going on throughout the day that were so entertaining. One of my favorites was a group of four young women vaulting. There was a competition where the riders and horses had to perform various tests, such as backing through "L" shaped poles on the ground, having the horse sidestep a circle while keeping its front legs inside a hulu hoop laid on the ground, the rider throwing a lance while galloping (or trotting) past a bale of straw. The three top finalists would compete again later in the afternoon with new and more difficult challenges. There was barrel racing and one of the women did it bareback! Breed presentations, jumping (with lots of refusals) and my absolute favorite demonstration was jumping by a miniature horse. He or she said to heck with jumping, let's roll! and proceeded to take a dust bath in the arena. Too cute.

The first hunter/jumper show of the season is this coming weekend. It is going to be held despite the EHV-1 scare as there have been no cases reported in Alaska and I guess there is little to no participation by people and horses from other states or Canada. I plan to go Saturday to observe.

Mama and baby were in a large outside pen yesterday. The gelding in the next pen over was just fascinated by the filly. At one point he and she were on the verge of touching noses when mama went ballistic and charged him with teeth bared. He wandered over to me for sympathy after that.

Haven't had any breakthroughs in my riding abilities lately. Yesterday I was reverting to crossing the left rein over the mare's neck. How frustrating to backtrack instead of going forward or at least maintaining.