Disco's Welsh Show Adventure

I keep wanting to title this post "Disco's First Show", but I remind myself that no, this is his second show!

This time he's a little bigger.

But stop growing though!

This is the same WPCSA North Central Regional that we went to last October, only moved to July, and at a different facility 2.5 hours north of me because the facility 30 minutes down the road from me was booked this year.

"Where am I?" - Disco

This, as you might imagine, threw a wrench into my "I can keep a one horse trailer even though I own two horses because the only place I'll ever show both of them is 30 minutes down the road" plan. I still really don't want to or need to own a two horse, and I certainly don't want to sell a trailer I love just to accommodate one Welsh show once a year. 

Because I didn't want to put anyone out on account of my choice to own a one horse trailer, I decided to make three round trips to bring them there and back. Yes, that is 15 hours of driving. In two days. I reached levels of exhaustion I didn't know were possible, but I got it done.

Me and Connor getting gas at 10:30pm on a Friday

I was worried about how Disco would haul and handle it all, since he hasn't left the property since I brought him home in November. None of my barnmates were available to help me load him, so I had a non-horsey gym friend come out. 

I needn't have worried - he thought about it for a second, but hopped right on. He seemed to have a good time too, I saw him flapping his lips out the window many times over the trip.

He arrived and settled straight into drinking and eating hay, which is one of the things I've always loved about Connor, so that made me happy. Of course, there were also baby shenanigans because oh my god entertaining a yearling colt in show stabling is horse ownership on hard mode, y'all.

He broke two bucket straps making water art on the wall over the 24 hours he was there. TBF drinking out of a bucket was new and exciting to him, since he'd only ever drank out of a decidedly (mercifully) less exciting Nelson auto-waterer or stock tank before that weekend.

He spent that whole first night across the aisle from Lisa's horses but separated from Connor, who I would bring up at 4am the next day. Got his socks washed, got his feet rasped (my farrier is hurt and we needed to clean them up) and was just generally a good boy, or as good as a yearling with a need for constant entertainment can be, anyway.

 That theme continued into the next day.

I didn't even bathe his body and hadn't groomed him in a month before this show, he's just that soft and shiny all the time.

He was the only entry in his C/D 2 and under colts class, which was fine with me. We were there to get points for Lisa and to practice the whole show experience. To my delight, but not my surprise, he trotted in hand like an absolute champ, staying next to me as I ran quite fast (and I ran cross-country, so that's saying something).

After that, we had a brief break before we had to go in for the Sec C/D Champion class (all genders). I did end up putting a chain on him for that class - he was being subtly rude and pushy in the flat leather show halter in a way I didn't appreciate. He was MAD about the chain, but only in a "I want to make my opinion known," way.

Reminder: I'm 5 feet tall, he's not THAT big!

The funniest moment of the show was sadly not captured on camera. During the Champions class, the two stallions were on the other side of the judge's tent from the rest of the horses, putting Disco and one of Lisa's other stallions, Castleberrys Red Dragon, next to each other. As soon as the judging was announced and Disco didn't win, he laid down and rolled right there in the arena, I'd have called it a protest if I was prone to anthropomorphizing. 

But even better, Dragon saw Disco rolling and started rolling too! Then Disco started to get up, but got halfway up into a sitting-like-a-dog position when he noticed Dragon rolling, and he sat there and watched him roll for a while. Everyone was laughing so hard! What a Welsh thing to do.

One of the other handlers asked if I was going to tame his mane onto one side. HAHAHAHA. I would if I could, but he literally has two manes worth of mane. That's never happening.

So, did he win big again? No. But I don't care. He was well-behaved for 5 hours of trailering, a hot night in show stabling, being around strange horses, and being amped up in the show ring. These are the kinds of experiences I want him to have right now, and he exceeded every expectation I had.