FLAT TIRE

It was a typical nasty spring morning, this day didn’t look like it had a good fortune just by the gloomy weather. But it was a perfect day to start off my horse show season once again, my horse and I were both ready to get back into the show ring. It was just a one-day practice horse show that my trainer had chosen for a few of us to go to, in order to get back into the swing of things. I live about an hour away from my trainers other clients that were also attending this show. So instead of driving out of my way to carpool together along with hauling our horses all together, my mom and I thought it would be much easier to haul our own horse ourselves. Which we have done many times. It was about 6 A.M. so it was time to head to the show in Massachusetts, that was 3 hours away. I live a little but closer to the show than the other girls so I got to leave a little bit later than them. Anyway, after we were on the road for maybe 45 minutes, I get a call from the mother of one of the girls that was showing with me, saying that they were broken down on the side of the highway with a flat tire and no spare! Which is very dangerous to begin with nevermind with a trailer and horse. So my mom and I knew we could not make the show our priority anymore and go to try and help them. Luckily, we got before any tragedies occurred, and we also happened to have the same model trailer with a spare! But the hard part had not even started yet, you can’t change a tire on a trailer with a horse in there, mind you we were still in the side of a busy highway. So the first step we did was wait for an opening with not many cars coming and to hope to god the horse would behave and not freak out when we unloaded her to get on my trailer. Fortunately it all went well, and we proceeded to change the tire. After a couple hours went by, we had finished the job and got my friends, horse back on her trailer safely. At that time we were in no shape to making our show in time, but at that point it wasn’t even a consideration. We were just happy that everything worked out because the situation we were in could have very easily ended badly. So that is the time I helped a friend in desperate need. In result of this we could not make it to the show that i was planning on attending to get my horse and I back into the swing of things. But I also wanted to go top this show to hopefully get an early start on qualifying fr year end finals. Year end finals are championship show that are usually towards the end of the summer. Since it is a championship you have to attend other regular horse show and enter in the class you hope to qualify for, in order to qualify you have to win the class.  As long as you win that division you will qualify no matter how big the show is. So my point is that I wanted to go to this local small horse show in hopes to qualify because there would be less competitors and its cheaper. But no wi was just going to have to qualify at my next show that was multiple days long with very intense competition. That was a little disappointing because the next local show aas so huge that I felt like I didnt even stand a chance, where the final wasn’t even as close to as big. Yes, I was happy to help a friend in need and glad everything worked out where no one got hurt, but I was still very stressed out by the situation. There were other one day local show available, but of course they were all more than five hours away and we just did not have the time to do that, just for a one day show. Many week went by and my trainer and I were going through many different possibilities to how we could make this work so that I could get qualified. Finally after much stress, my trainer told me something that I felt like I couldn’t exempt. She was willing to put on her own local small horse show at her own facility. She has down this once before a very long time ago, but she had never had the want to do it again until now. I felt like that was a too much of an offer but she insisted. Of course it wasn’t just for me there were other girls that could use the extra judging opinions , so it all started to work out. Everyone pitched in to clean up the barn and get thing we needed for the show, like a judge, entry forms and of course food! A lot of the parents helped to by cooking food and running the booths. It was actually really fun time and everything was going very smoothly. I entered the lass I needed to enter and lucky I won and made it all worth it, it was such a relief. I was so grateful for my trainer for what she had done for. It was such a stressful situation but her curiosity and want to help made everything work out. This was a about two years ago, and at the end of that summer I went to the final that I had went through all the trouble to qualify. I ended up getting in the top five out of some very good horses and riders so it was definitely a success. I would not have been able to do it without all the support of my family and friends, and of course my trainer putting on an entire horse show! That is the time a friend helped me and I am forever grateful for that. The generosity and want to help that my trainer did is what I aspire to be someday.

Photo by Jude Doyland on Foter.com / CC BY-ND