Horse Show

I'm not sure I get the joy of horse shows. Long dusty days waiting for a few minutes in the ring and not having the slightest clue what the judges are looking for I'm just not that competitive (unless playing Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit) and I've seen a bit of an attitude that's hard to take. Nevertheless, I went off to photograph the kids from my trainer's program at a schooling show on Sunday.

I enjoy the opportunity to practice action shooting. I didn't have as long a lens as I would have liked, but I still got some good photographs:
Leann and Charlie didn't have much of a chance against the bigger horses over the jumps, but later wiped their friends off the field in equitation.
Ashley and Curio won the timed jumping class and wound up as reserve champion for high point of the day.
Pebbles had a bit of an issue with an orange cone, but if you point her at a jump she's a very happy half-Arab. Very pretty, too.

The kids had a really good time, which I guess is the most important thing.

I rather thought I couldn't do much worse than some of the competitors, so we might take Ace to a schooling show one of these days. He has a lot more substance than some of the Arabians I saw. Too many of them looked incredibly unhappy at their fate. It was a long day for them, too,