The torture never stops....

" I hate horse shows".
This, from Middlest, who has experienced one horse show- our County Fair. The same venue anyway, multiple times. And, I can't really blame her. "Horse Shows" are not my scene either, but hard to not take advantage of the opportunity to see how Mikey acts at a show. And, due to the nature of taking a 4-H project, she will be hauling him ( well, I'll do the driving, the trailer and truck will do the hauling) to the County Fair next month where he will be at a show for a whole week. If it isn't his scene, it would be better to find out sooner, rather than when he has been committed. So, on a beautiful warm Sunday morning...thank you Lord..... we loaded him onto the trailer and off to the Fairfield County fairgrounds.
She only entered one class, which was okay, as we were there for the experience, and they did just dandy. After Mikey calmed down, which took a bit of time and one tear-inducing stomp on Middlest's instep, he was a real champ, although they did not place. This was unsurprising to me, as even though he was calm, he was still much more alert than the other contestants. And, to my eye, the "hunter" frame and crazy gaits look like the horses suffer from meningitis. Mikey was also not sporting a fake tail, nor spray paint to make his white whiter, his chestnut redder and his hooves black as tar. Middlest also suffered from a dearth of blue eyeshadow, and no lipstick. I think they looked fabulous!  But our purpose today was to see if Mikey was calm, or a freak when the water truck zooms by squirting water everywhere, and the fried food stand starts smoking, and the cigar reeking dude with the bare beach ball belly flaps a big blue tarp up in the air to spread it over the tent frame for shade. Could Middlest stay calm if Mikey does not? And, would Mikey feed on her calm to focus and relax? Mission accomplished.

In the warm up arena.

Trying to calmly stand at the rail at the start of her class. This was the toughest part of the class for him, but Middlest calmed him down, and got him to stand reasonably well.

Before entering the arena at the start of the class. He is such a pretty copper color!

Moving out in a decidedly non- "hunter" frame. Pretty, no?

Passing the judge's stand, with the judge watching.

And this, just for comparison is a "hunter" type frame with the horses head straight down, nose at level of knees, horse travelling downhill....