In the midst of the rush to finish sewing for the show, in the midst of installing 4 FOUR new exhibits in THREE locations at the museum, Anastasia had an equestrian event Sunday at Oberlin!
2 hours to drive up there, hurry up and wrestle her chaps on, which went surprisingly smooth....then, being a nice horse mom, helped a competitor zip hers up, and helped the other 2 girls on the team with theirs. Almost thought they weren't going to go! Told both Beth & Colby, no salt this week! I won't be able to go to the next show, it's the same day as the Go Green with Red Panties Trunk show, so they're out of luck!
Ana looked GREAT on her first ride; they had been pulling horses all morning for just being crazy wild....Ana's original draw was pulled, and the horse they substituted was a bit prancy. Seems a LOT of the horses just were spooked by the crowd; they wouldn't come all the way down the ring, they would spook at the rail, what a mess. Anyway, Ana was doing a great job with her ride; got that horse to come nearly all the way down, riding tall, then on the reverse, was trotting, just got the call to drop to a walk and BAM! Horse just sat his butt down sideways, and DROPPED her!! She held on to the reins for a good bit, and her hat stayed on!! (I was good, didn't run right out into the ring to save my baby!)
Judge came over to see if she needed a hand up; she looked rather stunned! EMT's came in to see if she needed checked out, but she just pulled her chaps up and waited for the ride to be over. Judge gave her a THIRD place ribbon....imagine she might have gotten 1st if she'd stayed on!
Then, we found out, she'll have to be disqualified since she became separated from her horse...so I took a quick photo of her and the ribbon....which she ended up getting to keep after all, just no points for the ride. Ana said, if they took her ribbon, it would be like winning Miss America, then getting stripped of the crown for naughty pictures in her past!
This was all by 10:00am; after that, we had to wait HOURS in the cold, cold, barn for the second ride; Ana got off the horse at 6:00 PM; worth the wait though, because she placed SECOND!!! Yay!! (different judge, different horse!) No photos though, it was the LAST ride, pratically in the dark since very few lights in the barn, and everybody wanted to get the heck outta dodge!
It was a very strange day; during the second rounds, a horse actually kicked the rail AND 2 other horses; needless to say, they pulled that one too! The horse that dumped Ana didn't get away with it, though; the owner took him into the second ring and rode him quite a bit, til he settled down, because he couldn't think it was acceptable to throw a rider.
Ana was all set and prepared, in case the horse would rear, or would drop his head to buck her off, but the sideways move was a new one, just way too Ninja for her, and wasn't able to counter that! But she was applauded when she got up out of the dirt and walked out of the ring, and a couple of the other coaches told her, way to cowgirl up!
