September 8, 2007 - Graham Hill Showgrounds, Santa Cruz, CA
Reining I - 2nd Place
Photography - Ms. Sullivan, John Uphill Photography
This pattern started with a rundown, stop and left roll back. Ruby needed urging to get going and she wasn’t running straight. Our stop was not sharp and it was crooked cuz she was anticipating rolling back to the right. Our rundown back to the gate was not real good either. I had some adrenelin based on her take-off a month ago, so when we were at the right spot and I asked for a stop, it was more like a collapse. I could feel her nervousness. It was like riding a brick. Her rollback was a little faster, but she was all over the place under me. The run down to the center was crooked and our stop was terrible. Okay, that was out of the way. |
I took a breath and asked for her to back up right away. It felt like her first few steps were short, and she started off crooked, so when I got her into a good stride and straight, we kept going back, and suddenly instead of going back 10 feet to the center, we had gone back 20 feet and we were about in the middle of the left lead circles! She was all excited and prancy under me, so before she could step out of the pattern, I picked up the right, kissed to her and put the rein on her neck for our 4 right spins. |
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She was like a tornado, all over the place.  |
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I could hear her tail flipping around. Right away she was ready for the left spins and that started out real wild and sloppy, and then I had to pull her around for the last spin, facing the judges.
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But the judges were quite a distance away, off to our right. Oh well, continue on with our left lead circles. |
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I was pretty confident on our lead departure. With my horse bursting with energy, I knew she wasn’t going to balk, and we picked up the lead and lope immediately. Fortunately, she wasn’t running out of control, and I relaxed a little bit on these circles. She didn’t fight me for the small circle, but we didn’t slow down one bit. We might have sped up a little bit on the last big circle and then when I brought her up through the middle for the lead change, she did pretty good. The change may have been a little late. |
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Our right lead circles were good. She didn’t fight me to change when we were in the middle; again our slow circle wasn’t slow, and then we did the big circle and set up for the lead change. I was probably holding my breath, curling up into a fetal position and picking up & pulling back on the rein. I asked for the change and she didn’t change, so I jabbed her and she leapt into the air, changed and took off, making a beeline for the corner. Well, that didn’t go so well, but at least she changed. She slowed down on the curve, as she watched everyone at the gate, and we tried to stay 20 feet from the fence, but I think we were probably a lot closer than that. She didn’t pick up her speed again and I didn’t ask for her to speed up.
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| I dreaded the stop and when we got to a spot between center and the end cone, I asked for a stop and she stopped on her forehand and I totally bounced up. Not only that, but she stopped crooked and wanted to rollback right away, but because I was holding her with my legs, she just backed up a couple of quick steps. What a disaster. | There was a smattering of applause. I patted Ruby, waved at the judges and smiled at Michael and we walked back out the gate. Since I was last in the class, we only had to wait a few minutes for results. My friend Donna got first and I got second out of a class of five riders. No ribbons, but they gave me a pale blue Ariat baseball cap for our prize. |
