Littleton Horse show 2014

It doesn’t seem a year ago that Rocky attended his first show at Littleton, but today he was back!

Last year we had glorious sunshine, this year rain - LOTS of rain, but this wasn’t going to stop us, oh no.

Rocky was entered in the 1,2 and 3 year old class as well as the Mountain & Moorland, the same as last year with different results..

The rain had been forecast for a week or so and with a lot of other shows on today too, we didn’t expect many entries, although there didn’t seem a shortage of competitors,  but that wasn’t why we were going, we went to support our “local” show which has been running for many years and to gain more experience for Rocky.

On arrival it was pouring, so I sent John (my partner) off to collect my number and set about unloading and preparing Rocky for our class which was a few minutes away.

Rocky came out the box calm, he prepared calm, then as we set off to our arena, he turned into tigger!! Talk about bounce, he was passaging (just for a change!!) every step of the way to the ring, oh no, are we going to have a repeat of the Sparsholt outing where we spent the entire time on our back legs waving at everyone Rocky??

John thought this was funny as his new show rug, a waterproof shower coat from Shires Equestrian, was literally bouncing the rain off with every passage step! Didn’t see the funny side myself!

On arrival at the ring Rocky stood taking it all in, calm and quite – phew.

The first class was the youngstock class, so there were quite a few waiting around.

As we stood there some ladies approached and said how much more mature Rocky was looking, how amazing he was and they had followed him around the New Forest Show! Wow Rocky has a fan club!!

So the class started, we did indeed find the walk button – for a while- and Rocky actually showed some super walk movement, then the individual trot, well he trotted his socks off, in to the rain, didn’t bat an eyelid, balanced and even, very happy!

There were approx 10 horses in the class and we had a wait for our individual show, standing facing the rain, some were not too happy in the rain but Rocky just stood as good as gold.

Our individual show was good, he waited, listened and kept a lid on his excitement (I could sense he wanted to show off his canter and passage!)

The only thing I was aggravated by was his incessant desire to chew everything today, I feel he may be teething again, but this was quite literally “I want to chew everything”, so he chomped on his chain off his show lead, this kept him entertained for a while and stopped his chewing me!

We were eventually pulled in 4^th, exactly the same as last year! However we did beat some superb young horses, so I was happy with that.

Next was the M&M class, a few of the youngsters were also in this class, plus more, so a fairly large class to contest.

By this point Rocky was still behaving in the line up, still chewing his chain, but happy, until we came to do the trotting, oh heck the canter and passage came out!

I managed to keep him fairly contained, and we returned to the line up, happily back to chewing!

Finally after what felt like an age, we were sent out while the placings were being sorted, I already had an idea of who the winner would be, a gorgeous black Welsh D mare, she was stunning, and when the judge pulled them in I was pleased for her, then the 2^nd place was pulled in, and then the steward pointed at us, “ME” I asked, yes, he said you are 3^rd.

I was incredibly happy as the competition was very good.

The lap of honour was a little hairy, Rocky just couldn’t keep a lid on it any longer and he showed some spectacular leaps, and cantering on the spot!

We went back to the box where we had tea and a dry off, change of coat and rug for Rocky.

After a mini break we wandered back on to the show field, more life experience for Rocky as we took him to see other classes and the dressage arena. Today Rocky did his first trot down the centre line courtesy of the lovely judge who was waiting for some riders to turn up, she allowed Rocky to investigate the arena and the white boards (he had yet to see them) and the letters, all of which were in fact fine!

Shortly following this we headed home. We had a superb time, with ribbons to boot!

Next show for us in the Romsey Show in September, so if you fancy coming along, we will be there.

Sharon and Rocky x