Daring to Dream Again

After being spread so thin all these years with all the horses, it's been a slow, sputtering start to making plans again. I think, after toying around with the idea for years, I'd like to try and start training Bo for Reining. I've had an interest in that event for many years and I have always thought Bo might have the makings of a good Reining horse. He has the build for it and is a nice mover. He's willing and has a good disposition.

We have a LONG way to go to get there. Most of the required movements are things I've never done before and have never trained a horse to do. Things like flying lead changes, spins, and sliding stops... Then there's the fact that Bo is not very soft at all. He's got a good, soft mouth, but he's kinda lunk headed and doesn't have much finesse as of yet. A lot of that is my fault; back when I first started him I didn't know much more than how to get a horse rideable at a very basic level. He is very willing to please though and has a great mind. I foresee a bit of starting over in some areas.

Compound all of that by both Bo and I being pretty out of shape right now. Yeah, it's gonna be a bit of an uphill battle from the start.

I would like to put him in some local open shows this summer in whatever classes we can get ready for. I had planned to start with stuff like Walk/Trot classes and maybe... maybe Novice Reining - if we can get anywhere close to being ready for that. We both need a lot of conditioning and need to learn a lot more together.

I think it will be fun and if we can go to some shows and not make fools of ourselves, having done most of the work on our own, it'll be great.

Oh Boy!

Well last night I did some digging around on the website for the EMM (Extreme Mustang Makeover) events and I found the list of trainers for Colorado, which was cool. I'm the only one from South Dakota and aside from one in Montana and a couple from Idaho it looked like I'm the the only one from the northern states. There are 48 trainers listed.

I then made the mistake of reading through all of the rules and regulations for the event. Having done an EMM before, I thought I knew what was coming. Oh boy, I was wrong. The actual competition for this one is quite a bit different than what I did before. There are in total three riding sections, not including the Freestyle if I make Top 10. The required riding sections include a Reining pattern (entry level) and... cow work. Looks like I desperately need to find someone with cows. Getting a chance to work cows is something I've always wanted to do with Bo, but have never gotten serious about. I guess now's the time!

I had already been working on gathering information on the various Open show schedules in the area, so I have quite a list started of a bunch of events that I'll now be planning to take the mustang to. The first EMM that I did was in the winter and I never had much opportunity to take Onyx to any other events before the big one. I think that hurt us quite a bit when we had to perform in front of all those people. This time around I'll have the months of April, May, and the first part of June to get the new mustang exposed to a lot more.

But still.. the cow work and some of the other requirements have me pretty nervous. The good news is that I have the next month to work on preparations, before the real work begins.

Overall though... Excitement is still trumping nerves -- Whoo Hoo!!!!