By special guest blogger Prize:

I have to tell you all the horrible things that happened to me yesterday. You need to hear my side because if I wait until my mom gets back and let her tell you about it I’m sure she’ll tell it all wrong. You see, I was really tired yesterday morning. I go outside all night and then I need a nap in my stall. But mom brought me and and started to brush me. I know that means trouble becuase usually I’m allowed to get as muddy and nasty as I want.

I was right she made me get in the trailer. I was not happy. I told everyone I saw as we drove down the road that I had been kidnapped and someone should call the Humane Society and rescue me. But no one did. I even kicked the trailer alot to get the people’s attention but no one helped.

We got to the dressage show place. It had rained the night before. Mom went and looked at the ring and told me there were no mud puddles. I hate mud puddles. I don’t get my toes wet. It is not ladylike.

We warmed up and there was this horse in there showing off. He was in my class but had done higher levels and was acting all snooty about it. Then a buggy went by on the road and he freaked out. He spun around in circles and jumped up and down. I watched him and laughed. He didn’t appreciate that. But the people who were in the ring with him and his rider all came and stood by me for protection while he was freaking out. Yeah, I’m tough.

There was also a dog there. He was so cool. He was huge. There were actually mini horses in the pastures and the dog was bigger than them. I wanted to follow him around instead of working but Mom said no.

When it was my turn I realized that Mom had lied about the mud puddles! Not only were there two areas of standing water concealing horse-swallowing quicksand but the whole ring was MUDMUDMUD! I didn’t want to step in it but I knew I had to. I made sure mom knew I was angry by giving big sighs and daintily stepping in to the ring trying not to get my toes dirty.

We started our pattern and then Mom steered me right towards the quicksand – at a TROT! But it was ok because I made sure to hit the breaks right before the puddle. Mom was not happy about me saving our lives and wanted me to keep going. So I tiptoed, at a walk thank you very much, between the two puddles. I kept my eye on the one on my left until Mom made me look forward so see where I was going. We were ok until we had to make circles in the center of the ring. Well that takes you right through the bigger puddle! I tried hard to avoid it and she tried hard to make me go through it. But I won! Mom says we did trapezoids instead of circles. She doesn’t seem happy about it but that sounds more impressive to me. The way I see it if the people who wrote the patterns would have known that there was going to be MUDMUDMUD! they would have modified the pattern too.

Editor’s note – Prize makes it sound like she was up to her hocks in muck. In fact most of the ring was slightly damp and the two puddles were small areas of standing water covering maybe 2% of the ring.

It was MUDMUDMUD! There weren’t as many horses around as usual. I think they had all been swallowed by the quicksand before we got there. Anyway, we went in for our second test. Mom tried to make me ride through the quicksand twice while we were warming up but I knew better. She even tried to trick me into going into it but I’m too smart for that. She also was nagging me to keep my head down. I’m looking out for our safety and she’s worried about my head? Who can understand people? We made trapezoids again in this test. Then at the end I gave up. I decided that if she wanted to die so be it. I quit looking around and even put my head down. I put it way down and trotted really slow just like the western horses I stayed with at school do. Then mom was trying to get me to speed up and pick my head UP! Some people are never satisfied.

But the most important thing was the judge wrote on my score card that I was cute. Editor’s note – The full text was “Cute horse who needs to learn to accept the bit more to earn higher scores.” I say that means put your head down, quit gawking around, and quit acting a fool in the ring. You see, she said I was cute!! Smart judge.