Make Me

Tucker is pretty much the Jerry Maguire of horses and hates being alone.  We ride alone ALL OF THE TIME at home so this only applies to new venues, and honestly only to *some* new venues.  He decided WEF was one of these places.  Fair enough, as this is a totally overwhelming place.  Paige rode him to the showground on Monday and this is how they were in the driveway.

Not an actual photo

 

 

He had apparently used his vast mental resources to realize that once he left the driveway, he would have to go somewhere else.  This is what he thought of that.

 

Note the standing on the hind legs and the frown on Paige's face

 

Rearing is one of those things that goes in the category of "do anything but that," so they had a bit of a come to Jesus moment and proceeded to the show, safely through the TOD (tunnel of doom).  They flatted a bit in one area due to it having a horse present when it was decided they should go to the ring where they would actually be showing.  Cue Tucker standing on his back legs.  They had, ahem, another discussion and then did some flatwork before taking the long, lonely road home from Pony Island.  Pony Island refers to rings 11 and 12, because they are a bit buffered from the rest of the show and they are the pony rings on the weekend.  A frequent loudspeaker announcement when people decide to school their churlish horses there amongst the ponies is "NO HORSES ON PONY ISLAND."  Don't worry, churlish horses are accepted there during the week.  Anyways, there is a bridle path directly there that does not involve the TOD, but it is not as well attended and thus also not a favorite of Tucker's.  They made it home and I hope Paige had several margaritas.

 

 

We both wondered if these shenanigans would repeat and he would be spending the week in the $20 schooling ring instead of showing, but he was a good boy schooling yesterday which meant this number was getting some use.

Yes, there are over 7000 horses here and showing

 

She was able to show first thing this morning and the report back is he was a very good boy.  He has struggled with his left to right lead change and they had several nice changes that way, while he managed to flub his right to left changes.  This is not surprising; when Tucker is focusing on a new skill he tends to temporarily lose an old skill.  He marched around like a brave horse, didn't have any holy sh*t distances and got down the lines easily.  He'll show again tomorrow and then get a more relaxing weekend.

 

 

 



The loneliest horse ever

 

Perhaps the best part is Tucker got to go home, take a shower and then go outside for the rest of the day.  Living the dream, that one.