Years in the making - and scratch that thought

We made it to the show under the premise: For schooling purposes only. At that point we didn't know that it would be the last one for the foreseeable future.

Roz gave me the option to excuse myself if things went south in the ring, which did wonders for my nerves, as did the "for schooling only" theme. Mind you, we hadn't shown in years, so this was a very big deal. Non horse people will have a hard time understanding, but when your mind (and your horse's mind) are your biggest enemies things are not easy. Both Remy and I had to overcome some serious hurdles, Remy his claustrophobia in the warm up arenas, und I... well, lets just say I didn't necessarily wanted to get tossed.

Thanks mainly to Roz, all went well. Remy handled the warm ups like a champ, even when some crazy lady cut him off repeatedly all the while hitting her horse (where is the TD when you need him/her??). Of course, just as we came around to C the judge shook a sheaf of papers in order to give them to the runner. Remy caught that movement and all of a sudden we were facing the opposite direction. To my surprise he wasn't rattled by it, we were able to continue on without any huge mishaps.

Saturday's handwalk before the class made me consider scratching: Remy had seen/smelled some stallions and he was a wild man - roaring, blowing, trumpeting. Guess there are still some hormones cruising through his system. But once back to work he seemed fine. Still, I had never ridden that test, not even in practice, so that was a bit of a longshot. Keeping the theme of "for schooling only" in mind we went for it - and actually had fun! Yes, we had bobbles, naughty moments, the figures weren't up to snuff (geometry was never my strong point) - but what the heck: We did it!  I was beyond elated because I could feel this:

That helped brush away the few not so nice comments, like the Brit stabled next to us with her humongous horse (that was ridden by her trainer) looking at Remy and stating "he looks like a mutt" ?! Or the acquaintance who thinks she has to talk down to me every time she sees me.

Luckily those were just two isolated stupid women. Everyone else was very nice. I especially enjoyed meeting Joanna, the show photographer. Very cool was that in chatting with her we discovered that she comes from Stargard, a town in Poland where my Uncle Willi was born (before WWII the area -Pommern- at the Baltic Sea was part of Germany).

Joanna had a special offer for some portrait shots, so I thought that would be nice. Little did I know that we would find ourselves in almost an "America's next Top Model" situation. It was funny, because she had all these props to get the horse's attention, but Remy couldn't have cared less about a plastic bag, or some feathers on a stick.
Really, all he needs is a cookie and he pricks his ears! And it didn't hurt that she exclaimed numerous times "Oh, he is such a Natural!" :-).

Perhaps Remy should have a career modeling?? He could feed all of us! But wait, that would mean HE would have to be on a diet - Nah, scratch that thought, he says.

"OK, I'll be a model - how about advertising hay?"