What Goes Up Must Come Down: Runkle's Second Show

Sometimes I write an entry and then delete the whole thing because I think "Dear God, I sound incredibly self involved."

This was one of those times.

Runkle had his second dressage show this weekend, first doing jumping and a w/t/c test! Big boy growin' up and movin' up.

Because I'm as lucky as a wolf (as the Mongolian's say) I was first ride of the day on Saturday. It's still scathingly hot and even with an 8am ride time both the horse and I were drenched through. Runkle never felt tired, just his normal pokey behind the leg issues. The judge arrived minutes before my test and I went into the ring. I let him have a little sniff around, look at the letters and car. He didn't seem phased by any of it. When she rang the bell I picked him up and headed down to C.

He was so quiet in the bridle, happy and relaxed through his ears and back. We swung through the final turn and halted at X. Even the halt was solid.

So besides his first w/t/c dressage test we can add another first: I've never cried happy tears after a dressage test.

I was so proud of him, and he had absolutely no idea what all the fuss was about. I was crying on him, hugging and feeding him treats and he just stood there going "what, we just trotted in circles. Psycho". But he wasn't done with the psycho-ness. The scores were posted and someone told me we won. I thought they were having a laugh with me. We had won? We had won!!! WAT.

More tears and hugging everyone and a thousand cookies for Runkle. WHAT A GOOD PONY. He rules.

I tacked up for jumping feeling like I was on cloud nine. He ground tied despite the commotion and I sauntered down to stadium warmup. He felt keen beneath me, assessing the new jumps in the field and walking with confidence.

Once at warm up he started to feel tense and nervous. The longer we were down there the tighter he got. He stopped and stared at a cross country jump in the field that we've ridden past approximately three hundred and nintey five times.

I felt his breathing start to pick up. I gently asked him to keep walking and he shook his head, and I swear I could feel his heart pounding against my legs. He's nice in that he gives me a lot of warning that he's going to explode and he was definitely getting ready to blow so I started to get off.

My foot was halfway over his back when he spun and ran, so I fell the rest of the way off and landed with my butt in the dirt. Calls of loose horse rang out as he ran (re: bolted) up the field. For a fraction of a second I thought he might jump the gate but he stopped and allowed himself to be caught.

I trudged up the field. His eyes were huge and staring but he had all four feet on the ground and he allowed me to catch him. As I walked back down to jumping though he started hyperventilating and then he reared over and over and over.

I should have been terrified but I just felt bad that he was so freaked out. I wish I could've explained to him that it's okay, I wasn't going to ask him to do anything hard, I wasn't going to ask him to race. Unfortunately horses don't speak English so we had to settle for putting him back in his stall to calm down.

Once he came back to neutral he got a small cocktail and we walked back down to warm up. Armed with a LOT of cookies I went and walked him around among the jumping horses for about an hour. Initially he was scared, but the longer we were down there the more calm he was until we were standing in the middle of the stadium course while someone schooled it and grazed.

It wasn't the clear round I had pictured but I was proud that he had gone from being petrified to acquiescing that we could stand by the jumps without running away, rearing, or shanking anyone with a shiv constructed of salt licks and carrots.

I'm still considering it a huge victory. And if anyone ever doubts the humbling nature of horse's I'll just link them to this post.

Pictures might be coming, but no video as my dad has UP AND MOVED AWAY and he was my official videographer. Although I'm glad I don't have Runkle's 'spin and fuck off' move on video.