Northwestern IHSA Show

So yesterday I was super excited for our home show. I figured I had it in the bag because I know all of the horses. I had three horses that I wanted to draw: Mr. Bubbles, Dutchess, or Cameo.

I got Mr. Bubbles! I was so confident (overly confident...) that I would win my class simply because he was a know-it-all, push-button horse. I let myself get over confident and ended up getting 6th place...the only good thing about that is that I at least beat a couple other people.
One girl on the team says that it's not about winning ribbons and that it's about having fun. I have to disagree. I mean, I'm still in it to have a good ride, but I'm especially looking to win ribbons. I guess that the "not winning ribbons" attitude only happens when you win (or maybe lose) all the time, and since I'm almost always stuck in the middle around 4th or 5th place,  I really like winning those blue ribbons.

Basically, what went wrong was that I got a little too close to the judge and picked up the wrong lead. I couldn't even tell...my mom keeps telling me that I need to stay on the rail too, but everyone on the team says "Oh, no, stay in the middle or on the quarter line, it'll attract the judge's attention." I did that yesterday and got 6th. I stayed on the rail on Saturday and got 1st. I think I'll go with my mom's judgment from now on, she was show jumping for longer than those girls were alive...She made a good point though: when you amble around in the middle you look like you have no idea what you're doing.

I have a question for all you English discipline people out there: How tight of a reverse do you do? In Paso shows, our reverse has to be super tight because the horse is supposed to be very flexible and supple at the pole. Nell's been telling me that I'm hurting her horses by reversing tight and that if I want to reverse, I'm supposed to reverse across the middle of the arena...I highly disagree with her, especially after yesterday when I reversed across the arena and every one else reversed on the rail. I'm not too pleased, to say the least.

Anyways. I was thinking of just working on the flat for my lessons, but I figured since Brie's not going to be shown too much because we only have a 2 horse trailer and 2 younger horses, I'll continue teaching her how to canter and what not and practice lead changes with her and keep using my $40 a week on working on jumping. I can't wait to go to the barn this weekend and return to some sense of a normal training regimen once football season's over.