showing? Riding horse vs. Style and Performance? help please!

[digitalangel]

Oh im in a right pickle.

Champs this weekend, i qualified for riding horse but i *think* i can also do style and performance, but both classes clash! We mainly do dressage and are new to showing - but cant decide which is the better class to do? S&P ask for lengthened strides, fwlr, trot serpentine and S shape canter which we can do mostly, but we struggle a bit changing rein in the canter. Dressage-wise we are just moving up to novice but school elem at home. Riding horse, ive only done one class, and he has given a judge a good ride in the past.

He is a nice-ish small riding horse type though, so ive been told... - quite fine, and a bit of anglo in him.

I also plan to show him in his dressage saddle as he is an extremely hard to fit horse saddle-wise as he is close in front but wide behind so a funny shape and any change of saddle causes violent headshaking and rearing. He is very comfy in his current saddle tho!

So i feel riding horse would be easier for him but am worried he would be outclassed? Also same worries in S&P as he is not exactly a finished product yet and does tense up in a dressage arena, but is fine in normal showing classes.

Also, what is normally worn for s&p classes and what is the correct 'type' of horse for this class?

Cuppa if youre up this late and read to the end.

 

[3DE]

You could always enter for both and hope one of them is running horrendously over... The times never stay right anyway so you may find you could do both. It's a risk though as they may be at the same time and you could lose your entry money for one of the classes... The other option (if you are a rosette chaser ) is to enter both and to have a look at the horses in the warmup and go for the class with the 'weaker' looking horses.

 

[digitalangel]

Definitely not a rosette chaser - i fully expect us to come last! But really looking forward to experiencing a 'big show' as it will be a first for us I dont mind where we come, but i do want to do the class that is the best suited to him and his type. i could enter both but my OH might kill me as the entry fees are high and there are no refunds if classes clash!

 

[MissSBird]

Without seeing a photo it's hard to tell which class would be most suited. I would expect a style and performance class to be mainly dominated by warmblood types who will be flashy dressage movers, and from your description your lad sounds more like a riding horse. On the con side, however, if the riding horse class is not split into smalls and larges, you may find he is outshone purely because he's little and bigger horses tend to dominate the ring and the judge's eye.

I think judge ride is the clincher. If you are confident that the judge will get a good ride, then go for riding horse. If not, then style and performance.

I think you'll get a mixture of turnout in style and performance. Personally I'd turn out in a tweed jacket/shirt/tie per showing, and go for a simple bridle without fancy brownband.

I also think you should enter both. If they're both scheduled to run at exactly the same time, you can almost garuntee they won't - unless they're the first class!

 

[digitalangel]

a show we did in june. he has a lovely springy trot when not distracted! And can sometimes lengthen his stride a little too much?

Anyway once he engages, he moves lovely but he is extremely light in the mouth so is quirky to get working properly. However in a show ring hes a lot more forwards than in a dressage arena - not quite sure why that is? A judge is normally a good rider and the one judge that rode him got a better tune out of him that i ever could.

The classes are split so at 15.2 he would be in the small riding horse class. But ive got black tack, not brown and riding horse is supposed to be brown tack?

That said he does have good movement...

you know what, ill chance it and go for both - before riding horse, there are a couple of split classes so perhaps they will run over? both classes are 3rd class of the day in each ring. Being new to showing though im not sure if these split classes will run together though?

 

[digitalangel]

Just entered riding horse.. hope it was the right decision! Guess ill find out sunday ha ha!