Hang my head in shame!

Forgive me for not updating.

We never did end up showing at the last Ancaster show. We did, however, show at the Rockton World's Fair in October. I should've known it wasn't going to be a great day when we were late due to one horse refusing to trailer. So late I wouldn't have had time to even warm up for my division. So I backed out of that one and entered the Children's division (I'm 18, it's 18 and under). The arenas were mucky due to rain and while the soupy arenas at the Ancaster Fair Grounds were one thing.. this was a whole new kind of mud. We were not pleased.
We rushed for warm up but succeeded. I also had convinced a gutsy friend to take Symbah in the 2'9" jumpers (I can hear the laughter now).

I'll try to shorten this story up.

I was ditched at the fairgrounds while my barn owner left to pick up the other horse (the one who refused to trailer). I had on horse in one hand, and my puppy in the other hand. Talk about unimpressed on all parts! Thankfully another barn was nice enough to allow me to tie poor Symbah to the trailer while I got myself organized. This was a barn I had previously boarded at and had some serious issues/drama with. However, they put all that behind them and helped me when I really needed it. Talk about eating a slice of humble pie!

Symbah was great in warm-ups for both myself and the friend. Barn owner later returned with the mare, and I was ignored while they scrambled to get the horse ready. Eventually, the mare pulled a naughty move and dumped the rider into a cement barrier. Needless to say, she wouldn't be competing. So the horse's owner hopped on to school the mare, however, she borrowed my helmet because she didn't bring one.

Not an issue as she said she'd just be schooling for a few minutes.

Until they were calling all riders for my class and when I ran to grab my helmet, I found out that the girl whom I had lended my helmet to was showing the mare. I didn't have time and missed out on my only flat class. That was upsetting as there is prize money if you pin. I was in full panic mode as they started having horses jump their courses - and I still didn't have a helmet. Once again the other barn stepped up and let me borrow one of their helmets - talk about eating that pie again!

We ended up placing 5th in the 2'6" class, but had one refusal at a big scary pumpkin jump in the 2'9" class. Ontop of that, Mr.Symbah had become pissy with the crap footing and ended up tossing my friend during their jumper round.

It was definately not a good day.

Fast forward through the months as I decided to give Symbah some time off showing to prevent any sourness. We were going great in our training until I used a different farrier and poor Symbah was crippled for a bit over 2 weeks. We had a gradual recovery but we were able to make it for a show at Blacks Equine Centre on January 17th. Unfortunately, our truck broke down so we were late arriving and couldn't get a warm-up. So we paid to enter Sym in one 2' over fences class as the warm-up. Last year we showed the 2' division, but this year we finally graduated to 2'6". Well, Symbah was (of course) great! We received a 2nd place in the 2' class, a 6th place in the 2'6 under saddle class and a 6th in the 2'6" Stakes O/F. He was great!

A friend also competed him in the hack division and came out with three 4ths, and one 6th.

Great day!

Symbah does have a part-boarder now as I'm finding myself drifting away from him. Instead of hopping on and having a fight, I often choose not to ride him at all and just allow the part-boarder to. Or my coach will use him in the occasional lesson. He's still my forever horse and nothing will ever change that, but past experiences have proven that it's wiser to avoid the fights. I did ride him a few days ago and he was phenominal. We were both so relaxed and did a mini course of 2'6"-2'9" with great flying changes (which had always been difficult to teach him). I even included some rollbacks and he was in heaven, flying swaps and jumping fences on an almost sideways angle - and fiesty! I'm happy my last ride was like that, it really put me in a better spirit.

The part-boarder is going to her first off-property show with Symbah this sunday. I'm a little disappointed I'll be out of the country that weekend but I'm excited for them. She's a bit nervous but there's no reason. He's been there, done that and is such a great packer for novice riders (under 2'6"). She'll only be taking him in the 2' division but I'm excited for what the results will be when I return.

I'm going to try and keep this more updated as I go along. I have a new gelding I'm working with now, named Diesel, that's taking up quite a bit of my time too. But I did create a blog on his progress as well so it'll motivate me to update this with news as it pops up.