Reprinted from 2003

Horse Show is in town.  I am very happy that our trainers,  Jerry and Shelly Lunde were here withour “Stallion” Mulligan. 

It was his first horse show and mine too. I was excited that I just got my 1st official membership card to APHA and was going to be in a real class.  Mulligan and I have bonded and unlike the others, he is “my horse” as we say.  

The class we had entered was “Walk Trot” because I am not ready for more and Mulligan is still young and a little much for me.   It was decided that we would also enter trail and so on the morning of the 1st day, we started training him on the trail course. It was great, I have never been much for trail as the classes always seem to be so long, but I loved it and so did Mulligan.  We did not win the class but will definitely be back for more another day.  

On to the big ride; Mulligan and I have practiced walk trot the few times that I have been able to ride him and it is what we did best.  Just before the class, we had a tack change and I do not like the rush between, but went into the walk trot class and felt OK.  I do not remember what I placed but again we did OK. 

I was also in the next class, Amateur Walk Trot.  We lined up on the rail and were asked to walk.  About half way around, the announcer said “Canter”.  I though, no this is not the class I entered, and then Mr. Chesley, the announcer quickly said, Trot.  At the time, I was under the announcer stand by the back of the arena.  I gave the cue to trot and all of a sudden, I was going very quickly to the middle of the arena. Thinking to myself, I don’t think the judges are going to like this.  I realized that my horse had decided he had enough of me, the noises, the wind and wanted to show that he was a stallion and run, buck and play.   I did not see much but was concentrating on staying in the saddle. We must have gone around the arena four times but it seemed like an eternity.  I was trying to get the horse to stop, but gave him a few extra pokes with my spurs and noticed that he was now bucking like crazy.  All of the other people in the class had stopped and I am sure was just hoping that I did not come by and spook their horses. 

Several people were yelling all these great things to do to stop him(their remedy’s did not help) and so we kept going.  Someone yelled, “run him into the wall”, and I thought,“ That’s Stupid”  I don’t want to be thrown forward at Mach 9, then it was “turn a tight circle”, so I did that and after slowing down, we went to the wall.  By this time Shelly and Jerry had entered the arena to rescue me and we stopped.   I got off and we walked out. 

As we walked out, I heard people yelling scores and realized that I held on more than 8 seconds and had my first Bronc ride.   When we were bucking in the arena, I thought of holding my hand up and saying “YA HOO”, but was told by my wife later that she would have disowned me had I yelled it out.   After we exited the arena, I looked at Shelly and said, “I think I was DQ’d”!.  On Sunday, we went back in the walk trot class and won a 1st and three 3rd places, Redemption for me and my big ride!