Cob Jockey

You thought I was proud of Connor by this point in the weekend - just wait for this!

Alllllll of these pictures are courtesy of Leah, and I think I speak for Mary and Annie's whole family when I say we cannot thank her enough for capturing this moment <3

See, Cobs don't often go in leadline. Section A's and especially B's are much more suited to being kids ponies, while Cobs are the stout "family pickup truck" ponies of the Welsh world, plowing the fields during the week, taking the farmer to the bar Saturday night and taking the family to church on Sundays, that kind of thing.

And I'm sure anyone who had watched the previous day's Ridden Cob spooking incident raised an eyebrow when they saw us put the tiniest rider in the show on Connor's back to go into the ring the next morning.

But.

"Oh this, this is mine, she gives me peppermints"

I wish I had video. He did his "Annie walk", taking one slow, deliberate step at a time the whole time we were in the ring. He couldn't have been more different from the fiery fella that galloped and spooked around that same arena with me 16 hours prior.

7 and under walk leadline is about the least exciting class out there, since all you do is walk, reverse, walk more, and then line up. But we never stopped smiling.

New favorite picture of the dream team everrrrrrrrrr

Mary and I's biggest concern was that Annie would be "done" and want off before the class was over, but we need not have worried. She LOVED it.

She ended up taking second, partially because she would rather hold the Wintec's molded plastic handle than the reins right now and it IS an equitation class (lol), and also partially (sigh) because I broke ANOTHER rule at a Welsh show! I actually did read the rulebook that morning, and it said the lead rope had to be attached to the "caveson". 

I die. The cute.

But I rationalized that Western leadline ponies don't even have a caveson, so surely they meant the bit? Why would you put a lead rope on the noseband in a situation where you need as much control as you can get, with a child on the horse? To add to my confusion, the TD even looked at my setup before I went into the ring and said I was good.

Nope, they did in fact want the lead line attached to the noseband. Luckily the TD, who was the same as last year when the whole Micklem debacle* happened, thought it was funny - both that I broke another rule and that she missed it. "Oh you, you're the Dressage rider that had the Micklem last year - I've told stories about you this entire past year!" 

She joked the whole weekend anytime she saw me, "Ok what rule are you breaking right now, I know there's gotta be at least one!" and she said she's bringing an award for next year's show to be given to the person who breaks the most number of rules at the show, which she expects to be me, lol.

Annie sure didn't care though. She was thrilled to get her little red ribbon. And she was extra thrilled later in the day when she won a pony ribbon almost bigger than she is for being leadline reserve champion.

It seemed funny that we were worried she'd want off before the class ended, because after the class was over, we couldn't get her off of him! We took pictures outside, then laid a pole out so she could "jump":

She's just starting to try "two point" for jumping now that we have these child-sized Compositis and the shortest Wintec webbers you've ever seen in your life

and then she rode him back to the barn:

where she insisted on picking his feet herself:

I could not have been prouder of both of them. Annie for doing her first horse show, and tolerating hunter hair (lol!), and Connor for being the best leadline pony there is. I was talking to Lisa, Cobs don't just do both Ridden Cob and leadline like that, so for him to do both so well, I was just bursting with pride.

Next year maybe she'll hold the reins, but we have a whole year to work toward that goal now, lol.

*Since it seems like I forgot to write about the Micklem debacle last year, I showed English Pleasure in a Micklem, and the WPCSA considers the jaw strap to be a flash (it isn't, it's more like a drop than anything else) and I was disqualified from my first English Pleasure class last year as a result, but they told me I could continue showing if I put the "flash strap" behind the bit. So I did, and I won out the division. It's hard to only show under this association once a year, their rulebook is a LOT more vague than the USEF's.