Late update - It could have gone worse

Well, the show on the 17th could certainly have gone worse. We managed to at least get into the ring for the Tack and Turnout after an already eventful hack down to the showground whereby I had Mum help walk beside Kel. He was rather upset at leaving Tralee outside the ring and by the huge amount of horses (probably the most he's ever seen in one place in his whole life) so there was a lot of neck wringing and fighting the bit and rounding of the back. We managed to keep him walking and keep him from blowing up until about 5 minutes from the end whereby he was just becoming too antsy and geared up so I was ordered by Mum to get off. Which I did considering I had taken my body protector off for the class and really didn't want to risk getting dumped. We got a Special rossette for entering and I survived. He was a bit more settled once I walked him in hand for a while and we managed to get a couple of photos.

Kel is going to need quite a bit more work and experience before he's ready to show properly under saddle but it was far from disasterous for his first show. He needs a lot more schooling for a start to get him over his crow hopping and neck wringing stage which may actually be sorted out by one of the Twins down at Tregurtha as they have a much better velcro seat than myself and more confidence to push him on. It seems to only be during schooling or when he doesn't want to do something because we went for an enjoyable hack the other day without incident. He's definately getting to a defiant teenage stage where he's going to try and test me and I'll have to try and nip it in the bud before it escalates. He needs to see larger crowds of horses and go to more shows too. There is another one on the 8th of July that we are just going to ride down to but not enter so that he can start getting used to the sights and sounds of showgrounds.

We'll get there eventually. It's easy to forget that back in September he was practically wild and that he's had to grow up so fast compared to other youngsters. He's intelligent and smart but he is still mentally just a baby and is going to need time to mature.