Arroyo has turned four this spring and has been under saddle since last summer. He has been doing walk, trot, canter, starting to go on the bit, especially, in trot. He has been introduced to leg-yield and shoulder in under saddle. He experienced field work, road work, he has seen vehicles and had to go over ditches and logs and some scary places he wasn't sure he liked :)
It was time to take him to his first show...

I picked a small local show which I knew would be quiet, not too many riders and also very inexpensive. I decided to do Training Level tests 1 and 2. Arroyo's canter is still not as organized as needed for Training Level, however, I didn't want to do walk-trot tests because I knew they would be early in the morning and I had 2 hour drive to the show LOL. For Arro it would be his first solo ride of such length in a trailer. I did take him alone for 30 min drive to town and back, he was a good boy.
I didn't want to go alone with a young horse so one of my students who also has an upcoming youngster agreed to come with me for the experience and to be my helper. She ended up being of great help as an awesome groom :D

Loading in the morning went very well. Arro paused for a moment, received light tap on the croup and walked into the trailer. He was very good during the haul, quiet as a mouse and when we unloaded him he didn't look stressed or sweated and ate his hay on the way. The moment he stepped out he immediately started calling to other horses who didn't bother to respond :)
He was unsettled being tied to the trailer, so we took him for a walk to warm up ring, to show ring but not into it as show has already started. His biggest concern was metal panels for cows made out of very thick pipes; neither flowers or judge's table bothered him.
In warm up he was more calm then at home, gave me lovely canter and didn't put a foot wrong. We came to the ring a bit early and had to wait our turn. This was most difficult time for Arro. He didn't want to stand quietly because he was too excited about everything that was going on. At one point he thought he could leave and upon being stopped thought of rearing. It didn't last long and after couple tight circles he decided he better behave himself :)
Being first time in the ring and hearing speakers crackling he was looky, tense and inattentive. We stayed in the ring, finished out test but had wrong lead to the right and free walk was very tense. We got 59%

Back to the trailer he decided to drink and eat and started to settle which gave us a change to have a bite. For the second test we ended up being late so we had to hurry up. I only did 10 min warm up and we came right on time to enter the ring which was perfect. This time he was much more relaxed and went through the test better. Here it is. You can watch it on Youtube. Training Level, Test 2. We got 64% and won the class :D

There was an indoor arena which we could use for the warm up. I didn't so I walked him into it after, he didn't worry, it didn't bother him. He is an interesting horse. Many things that get other horses worried he doesn't notice, but he can pick something and relentlessly notice that LOL
Loading took couple of minutes. He wanted to stay :) I kept making him face the trailer and my student tapped lightly until he changed his mind. Drive home was easy and he stepped out of the trailer fresh as a cucumber. I call it a great first show experience for a youngster! His rating in my eyes grew LOL

Happy riding...