I was filling out the entry form for our first show.

It seemed like a total impossibility that I was checking a box called……….

“Starter”

I looked at the list of divisions and had …….. inner turmoil……..

“Surely we can pull off Beginner Novice……”, thought Bad Eventer………

Um……..maybe that’s a bad idea………..thought Not-quite-as-Bad Eventer……….

“How did I go from Red Numbers………..

to Starter”……………..thought Bad Eventer……….

“Don’t scare the baby horse” replied Not-quite-as-Bad-Eventer”

And Yes. I really do have those kind of conversations with myself.

After waffling for several minutes, I finally convinced myself that caution was the better part of valor………..

“Starter” it was……….

Klumsy

aka

Seabiscuit

has been a super star baby horse.

He’s quiet, he’s sensible, he’s brave.

He’s sweet……

and tolerant……

I sent my entry in for the schooling show, and I was feeling pretty good about my future super star.

That is…………until we went to our last XC school before the show.

We’d been schooling before. We’d even been schooling before…. at the same venue. But I pulled Baby Seabiscuit off the trailer and he took one look at the Baby-Horse-Eating-Monster, I mean the Irrigation Robot, in the field next to us……………

and my sweet, patient, young dead head……….

started showing me just how much elevation he has in his trot.

It was like flying a kite……….. he became 20 hands tall…………….

And……………….

It pretty much went downhill from there.

He spooked, he spun, he reared, he bucked, he bolted.

Just as I thought he was settling down on the course……….. we stumbled through nasty pointy stickers………….

They coated his legs and got under his bell boots. He was NOT amused.

The amazing thing was that he jumped everything I pointed him at. But the shenanigans in between………….sooooo not any fun………………

I ‘ve begun to think Starter may not be such a good idea after all………….

Thank goodness I didn’t let “Bad Eventer” check the Beginner Novice box!!!!!