# We are going to our first AQHA show! Wish us luck.



## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

I've bit the bullet and bought an AQHA membership and a state AQHA membership and Shotgun and I are going to go to our very first AQHA show in a few weeks (first weekend in May). We've showed locally for years but I finally wanted to try the "big leagues" and see how we do. We'll be doing the L1 Amateur division for the most part, although I may double-enter into some Amateur as well since my day fees cover it too. 



We will be doing:
Halter
Showmanship_ (hopefully! his training is not going so well, LOL but we have a few more weeks yet)_
Hunter Under Saddle
Hunt Seat Equitation
Ranch Riding
_maybe..... _the L1 Amateur Reining (our flying lead changes are not solid yet, although the L1 doesn't need a flying change)
And of course, barrels, poles, and stake race


I'm excited! My main goal for AQHA is the Ranch Riding class, but I can't possibly just show one event (right?), LOL. I do think he will do well in the English classes too. He's got nice movement. We just need to work on keeping a steady rhythm.


I am not expecting to place and it is not my goal for our first show. It will be icing on the cake if we do happen to place but I just honestly want to see how we do, and have the experience. 



Pictures from last year's show season, because what's a thread without pictures?


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

Don’t throw off your hat in your run. 

Also, I hope you do wonderfully and have a blast while you are doing it!


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## carshon (Apr 7, 2015)

Good luck! How exciting!!!!


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

If they have the Rookie Division then you should do that as well. You both will qualify for it since neither of you have any AQHA points and those classes are inexpensive.


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## COWCHICK77 (Jun 21, 2010)

Good luck!!


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

You totally have the ranch horse look!


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## waresbear (Jun 18, 2011)

Good luck, have fun and bring us back Lotsa pics!!!


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

Good luck, it sounds like fun. Bring lots of photos back with you.


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

Good luck, it sounds like fun. Bring lots of photos back with you.


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## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

Knave said:


> Don’t throw off your hat in your run.



Knave, I am a former rodeo queen. :Angel: I know how to bobby pin the he!! out of my hat so it does not move an inch as you are making your flag run at top speed around the arena against a 30 mph wind. No worries......









farmpony84 said:


> If they have the Rookie Division then you should do that as well. You both will qualify for it since neither of you have any AQHA points and those classes are inexpensive.



Yes, I have thought about it, but there is a separate entry fee for the Rookie classes. I'll have to decide if it's worth it! The show is also double judged so all the entry fees are automatically doubled.


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

beau159 said:


> Knave, I am a former rodeo queen. :Angel: I know how to bobby pin the he!! out of my hat so it does not move an inch as you are making your flag run at top speed around the arena against a 30 mph wind. No worries......



I cannot for the life of me say why but this part brought Jessie from Toy Story to mind immediately!


I wish you and your... your... _cowboy dog!_... the best of luck! Blitz us with photos!


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## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

AtokaGhosthorse said:


> I cannot for the life of me say why but this part brought Jessie from Toy Story to mind immediately!



Ha, funny you say that because Toy Story is my daughter's current favorite movie obsession. I don't know why, but she loves #2 the best. I have no idea how many times we've watched it..... I've lost count.


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

beau159 said:


> Ha, funny you say that because Toy Story is my daughter's current favorite movie obsession. I don't know why, but she loves #2 the best. I have no idea how many times we've watched it..... I've lost count.



Some of the best movies ever made right there.


Daughter is trying to find a Jessie outfit for my granddaughter for Halloween. B's son, who is just a couple of months older, is going as Woody.


Not sure which dog is going end up in a Bullseye costume, but it needs to happen. LOL


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

Lol. When I was younger my mom was showing a horse they made. He was winning everything in the cowhorse and reining aqha stuff (she still has her world jacket of course, but doesn’t wear it ever). 

Anyways, before she pushed him cowhorse she did all around on him, so she decided to super horse him at the cow palace. She never had ran barrels, but I’d used him at local things and always won on him, so she decided to have this friend of hers run him in the barrels for the super horse.

The friend had ran a lot of barrels, but never shown aqha. So, like everyone did at the time, she flung that hat off as soon as she started the run. He ran second as far as time goes, but alas it didn’t matter. Lol


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

beau159 said:


> Knave, I am a former rodeo queen. :Angel: I know how to bobby pin the he!! out of my hat so it does not move an inch as you are making your flag run at top speed around the arena against a 30 mph wind. No worries......
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, I have thought about it, but there is a separate entry fee for the Rookie classes. I'll have to decide if it's worth it! The show is also double judged so all the entry fees are automatically doubled.


This quote is making me mad. It's doing weird things.

Anyway - sometimes they have that one set fee that's like $385 and it covers stalls and all the classes you want to take... it might be cheaper to do it that way since its a double pointed.

I haven't done the AQHA shows in about 6 years but for some reason I had thought the rookie classes were either free or really cheap... 

Things may have changed..... I'll be back in the AQHA ring someday but me and Baby Horse aren't ready yet.


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## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

Well, we are back! What an experience. Firstly, I was surprised that he looked like a dwarf in the halter classes, height-wise, LOL. And he's 15.3 hands so he's not exactly a small horse, but he sure looked small compared to all the WP horses. But he was calm and stood nicely for the Halter class, despite us barely getting to the ring on time. This ended up being a VERY SMALL show as far as number of entries so I was not at all prepared for the classes to go so quickly. 

I was quite pleased with him in Showmanship, despite our small amount of practice. He even kind of "set up" alright for the judges. He didn't fully cock his hock while she was doing the walk around but he did cock is slightly which I'm sure hurt our score. But I didn't want to touch him because I knew he'd move his foot too far back and hurt our score MORE, so I just left him. But he listened well, trotted nicely, did a decent pivot and I overall was happy with him. And we didn't take last place ..... but that may have been a technicality since one exhibitor's horse pulled out its fake tail during their backup. :-o So at least that wasn't us!


He did great at the walk and trot for Hunter Under Saddle. He had nice impulsion and forward motion, which I was really happy with because he tends to be lazy indoors. He was moving faster than I would have liked for the loped (and therefore I felt like we were whizzing past all the WP horses :gallop: ) but I knew his lope still needs work to get more collected and consistent, so that's okay. 



I was extremely happy with his Hunt Seat Equitation pattern. His transitions were just awesome. My only "complaint" is he somewhat stepped away from the judges at a lope because we quite literally had to loped by about 2 feet from them .... I kid you not! So he kind looked at them funny as he went by and sped up his lope as a result. But that's okay. He's doing well. 



And that wrapped up our first day.


Second day started with Ranch Horse. We ended up *WINNING* the L1 Amateur Ranch class and taking *THIRD* place in the Amateur Ranch class, so I was just tickled about that. The Ranch Horse was one of my main goals so I was excited that he did so well. 



We did also do L1 Amateur Reining but I was worried about our flying lead changes. He got one out of the two. Thankfully, my trainer was also present at the show and told me what I did wrong on the second change and gave us some feedback. Then, I got suckered into also going the Amateur Reining to help boost points for another contestant. (Sure, why not.) .... and we proceeded to get NEITHER of our flying changes that time. :chicken1: Ha, oh well. 



We did stick around for Barrels and poles and stakes race ...... but there was only one other person in barrels, and she was a WP-er who wanted to practice her flying change. I did "send him" for barrels because I took it as an oportunity to practice in that arena (very narrow arena and long) where the state finals will be in the fall. And I just slow loped him through the poles for practice, and then scratched the Stake Race so we could all go home, LOL. I did know that they usually have very little entries for the speed events, but I didn't think I would be the ONLY ONE! Oh well.


I don't really have any pictures to share of us showing. Truth be told, I didn't know anyone there (until my trainer came the next day). But I did meet lots of new people and had a warm welcome by many. Clearly, the "newbie" was easy to spot! Haha.


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## carshon (Apr 7, 2015)

Congratulations! I think it sounds like you did amazingly well!!!!


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## TimmysMom (Aug 15, 2009)

OMG! He looks exactly like my Timmy did. HE IS GORGEOUS! What exactly, is Ranch Riding? Is that what they now call Trail class?


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## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

There are different types of Ranch Riding classes. Some can be a pattern-type class (compare to like a Horsemanship class) but some can be trail-type classes, and there's even some that involve cattle. 



The classes available are most of the AQHA shows I will be going to are a pattern-type class, although the July show will have both a pattern-type class and a trail-type class.


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## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

I have to update you guys after our second AQHA this past weekend .... because we came home with points!!! How cool is that? (My barrel racing horse has a show record, LOL.)


It was a double show (first show single judged - second show double judged). As usual, we placed last in the Hunter Under Saddle classes, but that is okay because I know his lope is too fast for that class. We've just really not worked on it a ton, with everything else we've been doing. But his lope is good enough for the Hunt Seat Equitation. On Friday, we WON the Level 1 Amateur HSE class (5 people) and took 2nd place in the Amateur HSE (5 people) ... although I'm not sure how they determined that because I scored the same as the 1st place gal. I don't know how they break ties? But I think we still earned 1/2 point with that second place because there were 5 people. (They don't do points for Level 1) 



Unfortunately ranch horse did not go very well on Friday because they had barrels right before ranch horse which we ran. I did it in my ranch saddle since I did not have time to switch saddles, and I quite honestly did not ride him correctly, so my fault on taking 2nd place on barrels. We didn't take 2nd place by much (and they only used a stop watch and not an electric eye), but excuses aside..... he was still hyped up for ranch horse so he did not have his nice normal quiet demeanor. So I guess I learned my lesson that we will not do barrels when they place it before ranch horse like that (which is dumb ... which I told most of the show management that they need to change that next year). Took last (out of 5) in the Level 1 Amateur ranch horse, 3rd out of 6 in the Amateur ranch horse, and 5th out of 7 in the open ranch horse. Just wasn't our best.


On Saturday, HSE didn't go as well since I messed up my diagonal on the Level 1 Am HSE and we took 3rd out of 4. And the Amateur HSE pattern was tough with a tight counter canter and the same tough diagonal (for me, coming off a lope). I wasn't real happy with our pattern but we did the best we could ..... and then was shocked to hear we took FIRST PLACE under one judge and SECOND PLACE under the other!!! Come to find out that the other contestants were DQ'ed because they didn't do the pattern correctly. So we earned 1/2 point for Hunt Seat Equitation!!!! I feel like it was a total technicality but I was chatting later with one of the other gals who was in the class and she goes "Oh no honey, you take that with pride! Apparently the rest of us can't read patterns." She's super nice though. 



On Sunday, Ranch horse went AWESOME (except for sidepassing over the pole, LOL). But we won the L1 Am Ranch horse under both judges, took 3rd in the Am Ranch horse under both judges (out of 5 so we just missed out on 1 point) and took 2nd under one judge and 3rd under the other in the Open Ranch horse that had 10 entries!!! So we got 1 1/2 points in that! Super pumped about that. So I was real proud of Shotgun for that.


Sorry .... no pictures. Since I show solo (and still meeting new people) that's hard to get. But still really excited about our weekend.


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## lb27312 (Aug 25, 2018)

Sounds like a great show!! Congrats on the point!


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## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

Oh, and I forgot to mention the other best part -- on Tuesday night last week we went to a local NBHA jackpot. And wow did Shotgun lay down a run! We ended up 2nd out of almost 70 girls. My heart was happy! So that fact that he finally did what I know he can do on the barrel pattern, and then turns around and goes to a show, well, he's just worth his weight in gold. 



I did get our barrel run on video!


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

Congrats! Nice run too!


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## COWCHICK77 (Jun 21, 2010)

He has really grown up. You're going to have a lot of fun with him, nice work!

Tough luck on the little slip around the first :/


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## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

More good news to reports! We hit up our 3rd AQHA show the last couple days. We got to do a Versatility Ranch Horse Trail class, as it was offered for the very first time at our state fair. It was fun and interesting although they had to use a rope gate instead of a real gate (agaist AQHA show rules for versatility) just because the facility did not have a real gate. Oh well, it happens. I entered in both the Amateur and Open division. Unfortunately, Shotgun was scared of the rope gate for the Amateur. He's kept in electric fence in the winter at my folks' place and I think that has something to do with it sometimes. It didn't help that they were also moving a heavy fair food type of item on the balcony at the exact same time we were going!! He was scared of the gate anyway but it made it 10x worse with the horrible screeching metal-on-conrete sound they were making. The show announcer had to ask them several times to stop before they finally did. Of course, poor Shotgun's nerves were frazzeled by then. He was jumpy going over the real branches and the bridge, and a bit scared to approach the stand for the log drag. But he dragged the log well and settled down after that, but of course points were already lost.


Fortunately he came back and did PERFECT for the Open division! Under one judge we placed 2nd and the other judge 4th. I believe there were 14 entered so that was pretty cool!!


We also did HUS, which didn't go as well because he was scared of the indoor fence ... even though we were in that arena last night .... silly boy. Which is fine because I don't expect him to place in HUS anyway. 



HSE went alright and we took 2nd and 4th (out of 6) in the Level 1 Amateur. And then I messed up our pattern for the Amateur HSE! Ugg, I couldn't smacked myself. So totally my fault, and of course we took last b/c of the error. 



Then it was time for Ranch Riding! They had a great turnout. We took 3rd and 4th in the Level 1 Amateur (I think there was maybe 14 entries??), and then took 2nd and 5th out of a huge field of 21 entries in the Open Ranch Riding, and then we had a bobble in the Amateur Ranch Riding that didn't place as well. He slipped or something coming around on a lope circle which caused him to briefly drop gait, which is an automatic 3 point penality. It wasn't his fault and he didn't do it on purpose, so it is what it is. Things happen. But I was so pleased with how he did in the Open!


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

Way to go!


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## TheVaulter (Jul 16, 2019)

Oh, how exciting!!! Can't wait to see your journey on here! please do keep us posted.


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