Scribing

The little Stinker has been off since Thursday.  I am not sure if it is because he got his feet trimmed on Wednesday or if there is something else going on.  Awhile back he put his hind legs through a fence (electric tape) and scraped up them pretty bad.  I didn't think that it was bad enough to warrant calling the vet out.  They didn't need stitches and I figured I could do the first aid and keep them from getting infected.  One of them has some scars and it is the one he is off on so I have been questioning if there is a lingering issue.  In all honesty I don't think there is one but I am neurotic, so the vet is going to check him out this week.

Stinker says "LET ME OUT ALREADY!!!"

In the mean time I scribed for a show today.  It is a lot of work and makes for a very long day, but it is very interesting.  I highly recommend scribing if you get the chance.  I have now scribed for three different judges and it is very interesting to see all of their approaches and pet peeves.  All of them are excellent judges and are very consistent in their scorings.  One of the judges is very generous with  her scores and all of the judges at the barn love her.  The other two are much more stringent and aren't as well liked.

Each of them seem to have a theme in their comments.  One absolutely hates to see a horse behind the vertical or low in the poll.  She is extremely harsh in the scoring, which is really good.  But dang Stinker and I have some serious work if I am going to ever ride in front of her.  I am pretending like I have a horse that can walk (and yes I am in some serious denial right now).  I have tossed away all contact and he has stayed behind the vertical.  It is a two fold problem right now.  One he is super tense and two he doesn't always accept the leg which is necessary to get him reaching.  But we are working on those things and we will get there.  The second judge is big on bend.  Everything is more inside leg to outside rein.  Which is a totally standard comment but it never occurred to me that it was such a problem until I wrote it on every test for eight hours straight.  The third judge loves relaxation and a large majority of her comments are geared towards getting the horses to relax.

All of the judges are correct, but it is interesting to see what different judges tend to pick as the leading theme in the test.  The funniest thing is hearing the girls talk they sound like the judges love to pick them apart, but in reality it is the opposite.  All of the judges are hoping for an excellent test and practically beg to be able to give higher scores.  It is interesting to be on the other side of the clipboard.

Also, if the judge takes you to task at a schooling show for being late PLEASE PLEASE  PLEASE don't go 15 feet away and start telling people that the judge is a total bitch.  True story, I honestly admire that judge because she just laughed.  Also, when the lady came back into the ring for another test, the judge was not any harsher to her than any other person.  I am not sure I could have been that nice about things.