I went to a schooling show, or practice show, with Bella last weekend and it was her first indoor show. These are often 'scarier' for horses than outdoor ones because they are more contained in a space, the jumps look scarier (in our case, even the wall was scary), and every sound is amplified. Lucky for us, it was a really mild day so snow was falling off the roof which provided lots of entertainment for everyone except for me, because I was busy holding on for my life.
Since she is a very inexperienced horse, we had a LOT of kinks to work through that day. She was super tense, very unsure of herself and second guessing EVERY jump we approached. You can also tell in the pictures by her facial expression (especially the forward ears) that as the day progressed she was really enjoying her job, once she figured out exactly what that job was. In our first class (first of four), we took down every jump except for two, which would be horrible with an experienced horse and rider, but I was so pleased that we got over every jump that I didn't even care. The second class was great, the third was even better and by the time the fourth class came around, she was jumping like she does at home, which is the thing that I really wanted to achieve. She was jumping nicer (you can check out the pictures) and taking down fewer fences by the end (the last class we only had one rail!). Overall, I was VERY proud of her. She'll be a superstar in a year or two.
Because the show was really close to my home farm, we just walked (on horseback) to the show, which was really fun because the snow was so deep. I was joking with other people from my barn, that by the time we got to the show Bella would be exhausted from walking there, but as soon as she heard the loudspeaker, and witnessed a tiny avalanche off the arena roof (near death experience for me), she had no problems waking up.
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