22/03/2025
After 4yrs of waiting .... because of work, property work, building a young stud up plus more property work.... I finally got to take my sensitive girl, Painted Charm Skylar out to her first show "Darling Downs Heavy Horses" in Allora QLD. It was a great weekend with lots of friendly people and the stewards where all great.
Skylar gave me "her all" and compared to 8.30am Sat morning when she first encountered so many "horse and carts" right next to our show ring, that where all going to kill her.. LOL.... she settled in time for our led class, which was great.
We did the led obstacle course, which she was prefect at, apart from a mistake I made with her backing up. We scratch our ridden classes on Sat (in the indoor arena) because she/we where a little overwhelmed with the busy show environment and with only doing 6 rides over the last year, I felt it would have been unfair and unnecessary to push her past her threshold (there is always next year). We ended up doing the barrel races (out in the open) that afternoon, I was so proud of her and we got the encouragement award prize (donated from Pursehouse Rural - Allora) ... which made my day and had a whole lot of goodies in it.
Sunday: I felt like throwing up, because dressage & long reining where going to clash with times .... but some how we managed to do the dressage tests, in the indoor arena !!! (Less people around) this was after trying to scratch them, but the lovely stewards said they would fit us in and where very supportive. Once finished we rushed over to do the long reining with no warm up before starting, unfortunately, right at the scary part for her (right next to the crowd noises), the horse & carts started to move around the ring again, so she had a little "oh S**t" moment ... but we recovered and reset ourselves and she finished it really well.
Skylar tries so hard to please me, even when she is worried about things, I can't wait to get her out and about to gain more exposure and confidence, but I might have to do smaller baby steps with smaller shows/outings and not straight out to 130 horses in her first show... in saying this we still got a 2nd & 3rd in dressage and a 2nd in long reining in our classes.
In between all this and the MAIN REASON I took Skylar to DDHH was that we where asked to do the Gyspy Cob Breed Display, where she happily said hello to anybody that wanted to see her. Even just walking around the grounds, so many people walk up to us, wanting to know more about the breed, Skylar's looks and presence certainly attracted attention with her feather and mane (Skylar is only 3/4 Gypsy X Percheron, but she is true enough to type) and lots of people where smiling at her as they walked by.
Now the important bit: I have to say a massive thank you to all my friends that came and helped me even though they had other stuff to do, they gave me the time and support and let me do things in baby steps while encouraging me to pull my big girl pants up higher. So thank you Shayne, Viarna, Kimberley, Bernardette and Sandy, and a massive thank you to the Stewards, my dressage test caller, speakers and judges, you where all very supportive and happy to help when we needed it. The biggest thank you would have to go to my awesome Partner James, because without him working hard on our property and doing lots of background support (ok putting up with me and our horses) I could not have done everything that we are doing, plus finding time to train horses.
I have to say Darling Downs Heavy Horses is my number one show that I want to attend every year, you guys did a great job organising it around the cyclone and every year it just keeps getting better.
