PHEW.

For the first time in the last two weeks I’ve been able to take a deep breath, relax and SLEEP. After a double-header horse show weekend, I’m pretty much ready to hibernate for the next two years.

I’ll begin with our first official TUEQ show of the season, which was held last Saturday, Oct. 24, at Hobby Horse Farm in Rehoboth, Mass., and hosted by UMass Dartmouth. UMD hosted the first show of the season last year as well but ran into some difficulty with logistics. Many of their horses decided not to play so the same five or six ended up doing double or triple duty by the end of the day. But with a new facility and a new batch of horses this year, the UMD team pulled off a great first show, psyching up the Cacchione riders and allowing the walk-trot and walk-trot-canter riders to get their feet wet.

I pulled a sweet little bay horse named Khalil for my over fences class. I had seen him go in novice level classes last year, so I was a bit surprised to draw him for open. Khalil was advertised on the horse list as a “15.2 hand bay gelding,” and I would definitely say that the latter two adjectives are correct. But saying Khalil is 15.2 is like saying that my 4-year-old cousin is 6’2” (for the record, I am 5’10”). But I got on and got on with life.

Our trip was fine—I got flat left going into a short three-stride line but still managed to place fourth. The great thing about the IHSA is that sometimes the other riders in your class will run into similar problems, and you end up with a ribbon that you just have to roll with—for good or for bad. In my case, it was definitely for good. I then placed third in my flat class on a sweet dark bay gelding named Parker, which I was rather enthused about considering a) my class had some VERY competitive flat riders in it, and b) flatting is not my forte. At all.

TUEQ finished the day in second place behind Bridgewater State College who came from a very quiet season last year to blow us all away at the first show. They were FABULOUS and congratulations to them!