I am writing this article by way of encouragement to those who have not considered competing to give it a go.
We arrived at Bishopton on saturday safely thanks to Kayreen's good driving. Donia is a good traveller. I got her settled into a rather posh stable-any is if you don't normally have one!! So far so good. Nice meal at out billet and reasonably early bed.
Sunday morning- my stomach is threatening to pitch up through my mouth and any attempts at calm are failing miserably. I find good old herbal rescue remedy reasonably effective in these situations- I don't think it is recommended by the bottle though!! Donia is patiently waiting for her hay and water refill. Horrors!! a nice big grass type stain has appeared down the whole of her front leg. Muttering and gibbering "mornings" to fellow competitiors, I marched off to the water tap to clean her up while trying to stay clean myself- you can imagine the scenario both of us trying to dance round one another like a pair of sugar plum fairies. The fact that she is still moulting was not helping, hair everywhere. Our first class was showmanship where the horse is in my case a prop to a rather startled looking rabbit. I must say this is where things did become a bit better a helpful soul - Fiona spotting my all too obvious nerves pointed out that the chain was not correct. Our moment had come, off we went into the line up and waited our turn. Donia to her credit despite being spooked by the flags and any number of other assorted bogeymen behaved well. Whew!First class over and doone with. A 7th placing not too bad for our first attempt.
The next class Novice rider horsemanship. I was all for backing our whist ahead and just doing the walk/jog. However, when I attempted to withdraw my entry Kayreen, Dave, John and Margaret all encouraged me to carry on. We did have a slight mishap on the lope circle- the lope did not happen and Donia fancied stage exit left but did recover to halt and back up.The walk /Jog was much better recovering to get a sixth. In amongst all of this, I managed to lose my stetson. Chris helpfully attempted to hand it back to me but Donia decided it was a horse eating monster. John had the same problem when trying to pass me a replacement but thanks to his patience and reassurance we managed to get back on the road again.
I can say one thing that throughout all of this fellow competitiors were encouraging, helpful and friendly. There is always an air of relative calm around Western Shows something that attracted me to Western riding in the first place. This is of course down to hard work and training.
I know I will never be a serious contender as nerves area big issue for me but, it was made a less daunting experience than it could have been - thanks to all.
Irene Hutchison & Donia
june 2007
