Mia's first "show"

After riding Thursday and not feeling all too bad, I decided to suck it up and try riding at the judged trail ride.  It was supposed to be a small one anyway, add that it was cheap and close?  Why not!  I truly had little expectation for this, I was going alone, Mia is still sometimes inconsistent, we haven't done a ton of trails and we haven't extensively schooled trail obstacles.  I got up decently early (but after the sun was up!!) and Mia was pretty clean so a good hard grooming brought her to a wet-like shine and all ready to go.  I wrapped her up and went to the trailer, I was curious if she would just hop in.  The answer was a resounding no, she walked up to the trailer before deciding that Nope, No Thank You she had no desire to hop on.  I pointed her at the trailer again and she instead backed up a lot.  I put the stud chain on and yanked her a few times and grabbed the dressage whip.  I am not going to allow bad habits to form!  I pointed her at the trailer again and she stepped on my little toe/ring toe/middle toe as she came super close to knocking me down.  She got a very serious smack with the whip on her neck and I lined her up and gave her a good hard smack on her butt.  It worked, she jumped in the trailer.  Win!  I backed her out and we re-loaded 3 times before I locked her in and headed down the road.  Baby horses, ugh.

We made it to the event with little difficulty and I signed up before taking her out of the trailer.  Everyone had assigned ride times and went out in groups of 4, I had a 1.5 hour wait.  I unloaded Mia and tied her up, she was very happy to munch her hay and didn't call out to anyone, that was a first!  I chatted with a couple of people and even walked away from Mia and she didn't act up once.  Success!  Eventually I sought out the port-a-john and left Mia alone at the trailer.  When I got back she was still quietly munching on hay, what a good horse.  I hung out for a while before tacking up and walking over to the start to wait for my assigned group.

I immediately found a rider in my group and we chatted while I warmed up.  Mia was nice and quiet at a walk and trot (!!!!) so I figured I would try a canter.  Not only did Mia give me the canter right away, she did so with her head in a normal, non-giraffe position AND kept her shoulder upright.  OMG I was so happy!  A couple of people walking by said she looked really nice and the event photographer took several pictures of us, maybe I will find them posted somewhere.

Our group finally organized and headed out, the first obstacle was a rope gate, something we had practiced at the house!  Mia was a little hesitant to walk up to it and then had a little bit of an issue after we walked through it but did it and was told out of the 40 people through so far, we were the 2nd to actually do it.  Yay!  We then had to pick up a rain slicker with the horse staying still and she didn't move. Good mare!  The third obstacle was going up a hill and the fourth was going over a tarp, both of which she had no problem what-so-ever with.  The fifth obstacle was a log pull, something else we had practiced, and she scored a 10.  The sixth obstacle was a wooden "bridge", a wooden platform to walk over.  Mia unfortunately lost her marbles and in the 2 minutes allowed could not fathom how to walk over it.  She ducked out to the sides, wouldn't walk forward, jumped over the platform and just wouldn't walk on it.  We got our only zero :(

The seventh obstacle was to trot through a square, circle around and stop in the square, turn around and walk out.  Mia aced it, trot poles win!  The eighth obstacle was going over logs which she was a little looky at but went over.  The ninth was to take mail out of a mailbox which she didn't move a muscle for and the 10th was to dismount and have the horse stand still, again she did perfectly.

We ended up 10th out of 25 in our division which I thought was awesome!  I didn't agree with some of the scores I got but hey, whatev's, I am so happy with her performance.  We definitely know we need to work on bridges and I think she handled everything wonderfully.  I need to submit my entry for a dressage show with her on the 3rd, hopefully I am able to actually go this time.  I am so happy with my mare :)

*Edited to add* Come Sunday morning I woke up and my back didn't hurt any more than it did Saturday morning.  Awesome!  I am now at 95% and expect to be at 100% within days.  Yay!