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Liz Williams and I volunteered ourselves with our trusty steeds,
Clyde and Lady, to represent the club at the Festival of the
Hunter.
I
usually go to showing shows in two minds about doing reasonably
well knowing that showing is entirely subjective and if one
judge dislikes Lady then another will love her and our placing
really depends on judges’ preferences. However, this time I was
not at all hopeful as silly things were niggling me. The show
was a month earlier than the last time I went so her mane had
not grown long enough having been rubbed away by rugs. This
meant that I could only plait to a point halfway down her neck –
not good. Then I realised her tail should have been pulled and
as I do not intend to show a lot this year (perhaps this may be
the only time) I did not want to either so she was plaited.
Then I realised it was the dressage saddle that was brown not
the GP and as we had just had a lecture/demo on showing and
brown GPs were the order of the day I had to borrow one. Also
the double bridle was black and the snaffle brown so I had to
purchase more leatherwork to rectify this. Not a problem you
might think but I had just been made redundant too so my
normally organised brain was not totally on the subject, shall
we say.
 The
Lightweight Hunter class was big, 16 to 18 of us perhaps, all in
a 20mx60m arena! It was almost impossible to show off a
free-moving forward going hunter so we all looked like we were
showing large heavyweight hacks. Finally we were lined up so
the judge could ride. Garry helped the judge onto Lady and off
they went. The judge’s aid to Lady to canter was a thump in the
ribs so she did the most wonderful extended trot! Lost on the
judge though. So she got another thump in the ribs to which she
said ‘Oh, you want gallop – I can do that!’ And did. As you
can imagine I didn’t take long to cover 60m. Finally, he got
his act together and she actually did give a nice time from then
on. No one was more surprised than me to find ourselves in the
ribbons in the final analysis. We came 9th and the
judge did say was a lovely hunter type she was. So I came away
feeling a lot better than I had all morning before the class.
As our class started half an hour late the rest of the classes
did too so Liz was hanging around a bit with Clyde – now in
‘Vital Spark’ mode - for the Heavyweight section. Liz was
expecting the judge to say ‘more a cob type than a hunter’ and
to be right at the bottom of the line. However, all the
dressage paid off! The judge (whom we have since found out is
very highly thought of in hunter and cob circles) had a lovely
ride on Clyde. He told Liz that he had done some of the new
Large Cob classes this year and she really should take Clyde to
these affiliated classes. So it was terrific that Liz came back
with a 4th place and Clyde’s diary is now filling
with both more dressage competitions and some BIG shows for his
next new venture as a Maxi-Cob!
Wendy Taylor |
