And the results are in!

Tax was incredibly good at his first show.  Our goal was just to get him going quietly around the arena.  Since he's a fairly young OTTB we weren't positive how he would react to all the commotion.  He was practically perfect.  I couldn't have asked for a better first show experience.

This is him with his buddy Homer.  The rider is the 15 year old girl who's been taking lessons on him.

We took him in 4 classes.  He and I did the first class of the day a novice walk/trot eq class and I got a second place!  In eq!  And I have to tell you it was a challenge.  There were scary jumps on the sides of the arena and a big mirror on a trailer that they decided to move half way through our class.  I could hear the truck pulling it grinding in the gravel and thought it was going to spook him but I stayed calm and talked to him really low and he just went around the arena very relaxed.  That first class was the best.

Then we did a walk/trot under saddle and got a third.  He realized that the mirror was gone and it kinda weirded him out and then there was a kid playing next to the arena and making a lot of noise and that was kinda scary too.  He didn't spook at all but was a little distracted and kept popping his head up to look.  Over all though, he was really good and the trainer thought he should have done better in the under saddle classes but the judge seemed to really like ponies. 

The other girl who rides him took him in a walk/trot and a canter class and he was very good for her too.  She isn't riding in spurs yet so she had a hard time getting him in a frame.  He's still pretty green but they will get there.  Once her leg is quieter she'll be able to ride in spurs too and I think they'll do great.  They ended up with a 5th and a 6th so he placed in all of his classes. 

One of my goals is to get him filled out a little more. He still looks too skinny in this pic compared to Homer behind him even though he's got a ton of new muscle.  I'm going to talk to the trainer about feeding him some additional hay and supplements to see what we can do. 

I also want the trainer to be able to ride him in a jumping class at the next show which is in mid-July and I'd like to try a canter class.  I can't wait for my lessons this week!

Oh and I did get video if I can figure out how to get it off my phone and onto my blog...