AdorableAlice
Well-Known Member
I know you have another life, AA, (like work, for instance, boo), but we're waiting here for a report here on Alice's exploits on Saturday, seeing as she has been mentioned in despatches on a certain ID stallion's FB page.
Alice is delighted that people want to know how she fared in her first show class, Ted is furious because he hates not being in the limelight, be it for good or more normally, bad reasons.
I was desperate to get her out for a school well before the West Midlands ID Show on 16th July which is a show I am really looking forward to, and we always support the series of 4 local shows that run in June and July so we headed off for the Small Hunter open class at the first show on Saturday. It is testament to the temperament that the stallion, Avanti Amorous Archie puts into his stock in that Alice had not been ridden for 8 days pre show due to the extreme heat. We were confident she would behave and in a comfortable and sensible 20 degrees instead of the 32 degrees we had just 48 hours beforehand, we loaded her and the pocket rocket cob up and set off. It was treat to be going just 3 miles to the show ground.
She behaved beautifully throughout but got very tired very quickly, she didn't go too well for the ride judge, but neither did any of her rivals, but at least she was just green rather than rude which the others were. She deserved her first place pull in after the initial go round and I was very happy when she held her position. It was a poor class but it was a quiet start for her first time out.
The confo judge really liked her and said exactly the same as Robert Oliver did, in that 20 years ago she would have been the perfect small hunter, but today at county level the smalls are all fat small TB's with little bone but immense quality. There is plenty of fun to have locally which is also more affordable so that is what we will do with her.
We were undecided whether to take her back for the hunter championship, especially as she didn't even have the energy to prick her ears, so we tossed a coin to decide ice cream van or championship and championship won so she was got ready again, much to her disgust. The 6 horses were kept in canter for ages but my rider was crafty and managed to do a tiny circle as the gallop on was called for which saved another lap of the ring and Alice had just enough left to produce a reasonable gallop. There is a lovely picture of her in gallop but I haven't bought it yet so can't post it.
We were more than happy to get reserve, the champion was a very nice young heavyweight who dwarfed little Alice.
We came home with a good idea of her weaknesses, she has little to no confidence in the ring with others and she did not enjoy being ridden by the judge. She is next out on the 9th and will have been ridden by anyone I can persuade to get on her in the interim. Confidence will only come with outings. The outing on the 9th is very low key but has an exceptionally good ride judge so that will be an ideal pre Irish Draught Show experience for her.
Ted came back into work on Monday after several weeks off as his rider jetted around on endless holidays. There are plans for Ted to have a little moment in the show ring, that is subject to me being able to get his feathers off again without a visit to A and E or any more breakages in the clipper department. It will also depend on whether I can catch the little oik, who is back to his old tricks. Twenty minutes this morning and did I want to fling the head collar at his ample arse, I was late to work.
So watch this space and maybe there will be a plucked, preened and polished Ted The Twit strutting his way around a hunter ring somewhere local. Lets hope the judges have a sense of humour and the class is after lunch so they might be mildly squiffy on the hospitality. I am sure any fellow competitors will be delighted to have Ted thundering up their rear ends because once he is on a roll he takes some stopping.
