Evaluating Your Horse at a Show

Hey, it’s Barb. I’m sitting on a friend’s horse in our arena, getting ready to work some cattle this morning and to work him out of the herd. Things are pretty informal at our place now. The cows are saying hi, and you know, they like to have a little snack before they start working.

You may or may not know that I’m doing a free workshop on showing, which has four parts. It’s called ShowingUP. The idea is that there are six pieces of showing—six aspects six considerations.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

I’m not saying that that’s a finite absolute number. There’s nothing magical about that, except that I know from research, and years of experience showing, coaching, and teaching that those six areas are important to consider for success and joy. I’m sharing tips along the way.

One of the things that people have said is that they like to show because they want to find out where their horses are, and showing gives them that kind of barometer.

When I showed aged event horses a lot, I used to go to shows on the weekends just to see where we all were as we got ready for other events. So there are all kinds of reasons for showing, and that’s one of the things about the workshop: you realize that for whatever reason, you do what you do, whether you want to hang out with your friends or evaluate your horse or, go to a hundred shows to haul for the world.

It’s up to you. What matters is that you do what you want to do.

But I want to address this idea about showing and then evaluating horses and ourselves after the event. When we are ‘under pressure,’ we’re in a different situation.

Show situations can add a dimension of less focus and a lot of energy. That translates to the consistent things that you and your horse do well in the pen are called automatic skills.

It means that you’ve got it for those actions! People talk about muscle memory. Muscle memory is not an accurate term, but I’m just saying you’ve got it, like typing.

When you make mistakes for something now and then, that just means those skills are emerging. “Oh, I made a mistake, but it’s pretty good here. But I blew it over there.”

That’s a place that needs some more practice.

And then you discover things that, “Man, I didn’t even know that existed!” Now you know that’s an area you’ll work on in the future.

I wanted to share that with you as a little tidbit.

I’m doing a new showing workshop, and you have until August 11 to attend. You can review the materials and videos, and there’s a webinar coming up.

There’s a questionnaire and a self-assessment about the six areas of showing.

I have a webinar and Q&A on August 4th at 4:00 PM Central Time.

I’ll bring you up to speed, and you can ask questions.

I hope I see you this afternoon for the webinar. Have a great day. Even if you don’t show, you’d love the information.

Okay. Bye-bye. Leave a comment, please.

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