My dressage horse doing her 'other' job

[kahjul]

Here is a link to a pic of my dressage horse doing her 2nd job-this was our first official outing-a rodeo!! The bulls definately had her full attention. She was really great about all the flags, ropes and running horses. Just thought it was cool and wanted to share.



http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t328/jphillips03/posse.jpg

http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t328/jphillips03/fronttrot-1.jpg

[Ajierene]

So this is a case where both the Adult Amateur and the horse have a day job to pay for all those shows and clinics? Hmm...my mare should get a day job, she's been leeching off of me for years!

[Harryson]

This is awesome :D!

[hammondcrazy@yahoo.com]

That mare is so so CUTE!!!!!

[Ready2Ride]

Awesome! Man, she is gorgeous. WANT!

[normandy_shores]

Beautiful mare! I love that you're willing to try something new with her!

[JackSprats Mom]

Isn't it fun doing something totally different with them :D

My guy does endurance for his part time job ;)

[Sithly]

Looks like you had a blast. What fun!

[InsideLeg2OutsideRein]

You know the economy is bad when even the horse needs two jobs! :lol:

[Dressage Art]

Good for both of you!

[MediaMD]

What terrific pictures of a beautiful mare with TWO jobs! :-) Very cute.

A few years ago we seriously considered putting my then 15 yr old daughter and her 14.2h American sport pony into the money classes at the local rodeo which runs every Wed night in Raleigh during the summer. Most of the competitors are local highschool girls and we had enjoyed going and cheering them on but......at the risk of sounding elitist (ouch!) most of them galloped on the wrong lead or awkwardly cross cantered when they were parading around and most of them looked rather unbalanced. (Of course having never run barrels I speak from complete ignorance and it probably makes absolutely no difference to their performance and they were certainly extremely fast during the races)...I don't mean to offend any barrel racers out there but we just wondered if dressage training would actually benefit a horse running barrels --hence the harebrained idea for such an experiment.

Our wonderful game-for-anything pony was the most awesome athlete ever and like a cat on cross country. She could gallop him flat out with just a halter and he would come back immediately to a walk as soon as she changed her body position. Sooooo we thought it would be hilarious and great fun for her to show up in her eventing gear complete with blue saddle pad, helmet and matching galloping boots and a dressage saddle and see how well they could compete. Unfortunately it was a lottery system to compete because of the high dollar prizes so she never got in even though we tried several times.

We eventually sold the pony to an adult eventer who probably wasn't even tempted to try barrel racing with him...But we still laugh thinking of the reaction they would have gotten in that get up. I have no idea how well they would have done but he was fast as lightning and doing 3rd level dressage so he was quite balanced but one thing's for sure they would have been the talk of the local rodeo circuit no matter how they did!

Anybody else have this crazy idea?

[kahjul]

well, we don't really RUN anywhere!

[Anselcat]

I love seeing dressage horses who are also good solid "using" horses.

You guys look great!

[DressageGeek "Ribbon Ho"]

This is awesome :D!

ditto!!!!!!!