Before the show

There's always things that go on either before, at or after a horse show, that many people don't ever know about. This was one of those things.

My person came to the barn and it seemed she was in a bit of a rush. I had gotten filthy as could be the night before. I had a feeling something was coming so if I was dirty, maybe she would mess with a different horse. Right? Nope she pulled me out, took me to the wash rack and started hosing me off. At least the weather was kind of warm.

While I was in the wash rack the barn owner man drove past me with a round bale on the fork of the tractor. I like eating round bales, but had never seen one moving around like that so I got a bit nervous and started wiggling around. My person spoke to me and tried to ease my mind. Because I trust her, I held it together. When she was done rinsing me off, she went into the barn to start gathering everything we would need for the show. That's when...

I flipped my shit.

I mean, for the first time at my new home, I literally. Flipped. My. Shit.

I lost my mind. All my person could hear inside was my feet slamming and stomping around. She had no idea what set me off, since the barn owner man had already gone back past me with the tractor and I still had all my marbles. When she came around the corner out of the barn I was still struggling a little, but hearing her say "Whoa" in her soothing tone, I stopped struggling and layed still.

I had broken my nice leather halter in two different places and ended up on the ground under the bar and in front of the wash rack half in the mud, with the rope between my legs and under me. Hearing her voice, I calmed down and layed still. I knew she would get me out of the mess I was in.

First she tried to untie the rope. I pulled it pretty tight in my struggle so she couldn't get it loose. The way everything was wrapped around and under me, she couldn't even see the snap on my lead rope so she went for my halter. Lucky for me, she doesn't ever put the tabs thru the rest of the buckle. In a time like this, it makes getting the halter off, much easier. Because of this, the halter came off pretty quick, which was good because it was starting to choke me a little and breathing was becoming difficult.

Once the buckle was undone and my halter off, I layed there for a minute to gather my thoughts. I've never lost my shit like that before so I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do next. When I realized I was free I slowly got up. Eveything felt like it was still attached and working so I ran back to the pasture gate. I got the hell out of there.

My person went and got a different halter and then came looking for me. I was scared and didn't want her to catch me, but she talked to me and pretty soon I had a halter on. She walked me around a bit to check for damages. I was okay so then I was back in the wash rack getting rinsed off again. This time she tied me up under the trees while she went to hook up the trailer and load everything up.

Before loading me up, she walked me around to check for lameness or stiffness and since there wasn't any, she put me on the trailer and off we went. Because of my little stunt, we were running way behind. When we got to the barn hosting the show, we had very little time to get ready. My person went to the barn and checked us in, and when she got back to the trailer, unloaded me, walked me around again checking for stiffness or lameness and found none. She had a plan and quickly tacked me up, changed her clothes and we headed to the warm up arena.  

Unknown to my person, our ride times had been pushed back by 30 minutes giving us a little time to breathe. When she got on, my person took a few deep breaths and let herself be calm which helped me to be calm. We walked around a lot, trotted a bit and then went and stood in the shade to wait for our names to be called so we could go in and impress the judge. I kept hearing a lot of questions about me. A lot of people there were quite impressed with me already. They had no idea what had happened.