The decision to start showing our horses was very positive for our family. My husband is busy and works a lot during the week and my kids are all involved in school and different sports and activities and our minis bring us all together again at home AND at shows and is something we all love and enjoy together. Going off to horse shows for us means packing up kids, horses, toys, equipment, etc. and for the entire weekend we are doing something as a family. It is hectic during the day when we are showing, but we do other stuff at shows too. Socialize with friends we've made, watch movies together, cook out, go out to dinner, play games and lots of other fun stuff - and having our whole family crammed inside our living quarters for the weekend means we are really TOGETHER!
Aside from taking lessons once in a while from a trainer we do everything ourselves and we all set personal goals to meet for certain shows. I'm a competitive person too and want to be able to set goals to achieve. I'm like that in real life, not just with the horses. If I am going to start jogging for exercise I need a goal so I'll train for a marathon or if I want to do photography I will want work on my skills and try to take amazing pictures and enter a contest that I will want to win but at the end of the day no matter what the activity is what I will remember from the experience is how I personally felt I did and acomplished and learned not what a judge saw on that certain day and how they placed me. There are times at shows I've won that I wasn't so sure I deserved it because I felt I could have done better and there are times I've lost and felt I did everything perfect and couldn't change a thing or do any better.
I am not going to lie and say "I don't care if we win or not" because we do work hard and put time and money in to our horses and it would be totally disheartening and discouraging if we were not placing or winning with our horses sometimes, but if we were not also having a lot of fun and doing something together as a family and I didn't think we were learning something good from all of this then we wouldn't be doing it.
My kids are learning other things too that carry over to other aspects of their lives -- goal setting, work ethic, perseverence, strength of character, success, confidence, believing in themselves, etc. etc. etc.
When my kids talk to people about going to horse shows or tell stories that start with "remember when....." they don't talk about ribbons and awards they have won, they talk about all the fun behind the scenes and fun stuff they did -- playing in the dirt with their cars and trucks, playing with their "horse show friends", etc. and except for really significant events (like when our son beat both my husband and I in a driving class) a lot of times at the end of the day they can't even remember their placings and which ribbon was theirs.
I'm not going to get in to the politics of horse shows and trainers and judges or whatever because that isn't why Kay started this post. She is trying to remind everyone to stay positive and not give up.
HERE ARE TWO STORIES THAT I THINK RELATE -- I WILL TRY TO MAKE THEM AS SHORT AS POSSIBLE.
In July of 2004 we went to our first mini horse show ever. My daughter who was 9 at the time was so excited to jump her mini and they are worked really hard at home and she thought she was ready. At that show in both hunter and jumper she got DQ'd for refusals and didn't get past the 1st or 2nd jump in either class. She was heartbroken and huddled sobbing in the corner and was so disapointed in herself.
In June of 2005 we went to the World Pinto Show and they didn't have any Youth Jumper classes so she begged us to let her jump that horse in Open Jumper. She was the only child in the class and WON. She believed in herself and her horse an worked really hard and less than a year later won a World Championship.
This year at AMHR Nationals the first class of the day was Youth Hunter. She entered with that same horse and was sure this was her year because in 2005 they got 3rd place, in 2006 they got 2nd place and she was sure this year they get first because she had worked really hard and felt ready. We were all thrilled when she was announced as National Champion...she got her awards, got her picture taken and they continued announcing placings. Everyone got confused when she was announced again as 7th place. We thought maybe they meant our son who had jumped another horse in the class and we went up to the announcer. They judges came over and looked at all the cards and an announcement was made that there had been a mistake and the real winner was Sawyer with our horse Magic and Samantha was 7th with Rumor. She went from experiencing one of the most thrilling moments of her life to one of the most devastating she had ever experienced and had to hand over all of her awards to her brother. She completely fell apart (can you blame her?) and was so upset and emotional we didn't know if she could pull herself back together again to show in any other classes. She managed to compose herself and even congratulated her brother and did continue to show and the last class of the day was Youth Jumper and she and that same horse wound up winning the class with the fastest clean jumping round by 2 or 3 seconds.
MORAL OF THE STORY....WHAT KAY IS TRYING TO SAY......everything happens for a reason and don't get discouraged or give up on something if it is really important to you.
I've got all sorts of stories to tell that are like that......want one more?
Our horse Magic is a great jumper but never learned to drive and he seemed like he wanted to. He would stand at the fence and watch us when we drove our other horses. We decided to put him in training with a trainer for a couple of months and he was really (REALLY) slow to figure it all out and was a very difficult horse for the trainer to work with. I'm pretty sure he has horse ADHD as it is -- he is always hyper and has a very short attention span. He came back home without having even progressed beyond groundwork. We kept working with him and I pretty much was ready to give up on him but my husband believed in him and thought he'd be a great roadster horse and the next year we kept working with him and the first few shows we drove him at he'd get nervous and scared and forget everything he'd worked on at home. Twice my husband tried to drive him through the gate for roadster class and he went halfway through and literally froze in his tracks staring at the ring and the other horses and couldn't move and had to have someone lead him back out of the gate. He kept improving though and he and my husband were a great match/team and this year they won several Roadster Stakes classes at shows during the season and then at Nationals they won the Open Roadster class. I was thrilled for them because I know how hard they both worked to get there.
ANYWAY....my post is too long already but I hope I at least was able to contribute something to support what Kay was trying to say.
