Thoroughbred Transformation Expo - a short day 2

I would walk the course in photos like usual, but sadly we didn't get to do it all. He warmed up great, was jumping fantastically, had not done a single chip and squat, and then we got to the up and down bank, #8. 

The up bank went fine. But the down bank landed in the shadow from the mound itself. And Ben thought he was jumping into a black hole and stopped. The judge in the chase cart let us school down another but then told me to "ride at it like your pants are on fire" and yelled at me that of course it wasn't going to work when I didn't do that strongly enough. The attempt led to him running backwards rapidly, which is really not great on a raised mound. It's also 100% not the way JT has us ride down banks. You don't need momentum to drop down a bank, so we do them in a super relaxed fashion, go off on a loose rein. According to her, and I believe it, this is how you keep them from doing dramatic launches. Sure, if I'd approached it with spurs DUG in the first time, we might've gotten off it, but after that riding it aggressively wasn't going to fix it. 

Sadly then, that is where our day ended. Unlike our run out in April our first year together, this was a legitimate fear. Dude had been DOING IT until that point. He knew his job and was out there doing what we've worked so hard to train him to do. This was just... A spooky horse, an amateur rider, and some tricky shadows. I was half bummed about our score and half bummed that we didn't get to play on the rest of the course! 

We spent the rest of the day just hanging out and watching. Ben is such a pleasant horse to hang out with, he's a bit like a golden retriever. I did tidy up his mane a bit as well to make Sunday's braiding job easier than Thursday's.

I put Ben up and sat in the bleachers for the freestyles. There were some truly incredible performances. One fire fighter themed performance complete with fake smoke, rescuing a dog, pulling a stretcher, and jumping through a "ring of fire" (colored sparkly streamers around a small picture frame jump). Another drove and did flying changes and crossed a teeter totter and sliding plank that rolled forward (in a controlled fashion) as the horse stepped onto it. Overall incredibly impressive. I joked with JT that Goggles would do one next year that featured him as a barber. He's been doing some... Trimming of Waffles' forelock and tail (Sorry Libby!!). We're still not sure how Waffles is letting Goggles get this close...