SHOW SEASON IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!

I can't believe it but it's been two years since we showed our horses! that is waaaay too long!  I miss it dearly but sometimes you have to be gone to be missed.  I miss it!  Now that my daughter Madison is living in L.A. I'll have the chance to show her horse this summer, which I am really excited about!  Max is an awesome horse and totally lives up to his registered name: User-Friendly Max!

Maddie and Max - isn't he just stunning!

And I will be showing my Arabian Khrome at a few Class A Arab shows.  Thanks to my daughter Samantha who will be training him and getting him ready to be the star I know he can be!

I've mostly used Khrome for trail riding, which is my utmost favorite thing to so with horses, and was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to break him a few years back.  I showed him a few times after I first broke him in walk/trot classes but this year Sam will take the reins and finish him to be a great show horse.  She's super good at training horses, both my girls are.  They trained all their horses and they succeeded well. I'm super excited!  He's just a beauty and no I am not biased!  He's a cute mover, cleans up well and is a great ride.

isn't he handsome??!!

Ok, sorry, all this horse terminology can get confusing.  So here's the easy explanation:

Class A shows:  there are different types of shows that you can show your horse in, one is open shows, meaning they are open to anyone, no registered horses required and beginner riders can enter, and then there are Class B shows which are a little higher up and then Class A shows for purebred horses.

Registered horses:  this is a horse that has 'papers' meaning registered through their breed affiliations.

Break a horse: means taking a horse at age of 2-3 and teaching it to be ridden.

Finishing a horse:  training a horse to be show quality, ie learning many different gaits (walk/trot/lope/canter), slowing him down (collecting), etc.

Cute/great mover: looks good trotting.

So today Sam and I moved our horses, Honor & Glory (barn name Honor) and Khrome by Khemo (barn name Khrome) from our barn down to our neighbor's farm.

Sam and Honor at the Badger Show in Milwaukee. Honor is just a beaut!!!

Barn name:  the name you call your horse on a regular basis - not his registered name.

Our neighbors  have an indoor arena to ride in and since we are expecting a good foot of snow or more in the next few days, we needed a place to ride and train because the first show is in three weeks!  Khrome won't be ready by then but Honor will be.

So because it is still so icy out I walked the horses the half mile down the road to our neighbors.  All the while Sam followed in the Durango. I needed the exercise. And the sunshine.  She suggested holding their lead ropes out the window while we drove and lead them that way but I knew better. That was just a wreck waiting to happen!

Wreck:  when a horse gets spooked (scared) at something and does something silly like take off, you fall off, you get hurt, the horse gets hurt or the horse rears up.

And of course Sam had to post this to Facebook.

What bothers me most is that my ass is almost as big as the horses!!

Geez, I need more exercise...