Equifest…

Hiya!!!!!!

On Friday night I went to the Equifest Nightshow! The experience was incredible! I loved watching the showjumping, and they even had barrel racing and scurrying – miniature ponies pulling wagons – but the highlight of the night was by far seeing my showjumping idol, Vicki Wilson, showjump her GERMANY IMPORTED ULTRA-AMAZING STALLION, DAMINOSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never thought I’d ever get to see Daminos in real life, but there he was – showjumping over the adult Hack 1 meter ten class! Vicki was showjumping him, and last year I never saw her because she was having a baby (she has a kid now!), so it was so, so amazing to see her jumping in real life. When she walked her course she was carrying her baby with her!

At the end of the nightshow, during the scurrying, the hostess introduced the final scurrying pony (they had lots of ponies pulling chariots and whoever did a cone course the fastest won) and the crowd went CRAZY. LITERAL CRAZY. Because this final pony was towing a small one-seater chariot, and he was the size of a german shepherd – maybe smaller. The crowd was screaming cheers and videoing as this little pony tore around the cones. He looked like he was having the time of his life, and his name was Nugget. He won! He won against the pairs of ponies pulling the bigger carts, and the big riding pony pulling the big cart! I did feel sorry for some of the horses though, because the music was so incredibly loud some of them looked really distressed. In the nightshow a few people fell off, and there were lots of refusals, but for the children’s pony 1m5 class, the girl who knocked three rails and added 9 seconds to her final time BLITZED the course and won!

The next day Dad and I spent walking through the shops, and I tried on gloves and searched for a dressage whip for myself. We also watched loads of Show Hunter and show jumping classes (my favourite was the show hunter by far), which was awesome. I could almost see myself jumping Maz over the course of natural forest-looking jumps. There was also an In Hand showing class, and a Dressage team, and lots of Kaimanawa challenges, which were awesome to see. The Kaimanawas could do incredible tricks, like when their owner flicked their hand, the Kaimanawa would spin in a circle! We went indoors, and Kelly Wilson wasn’t there for signatures, so I thought maybe I should just put Libby and the two brushes back in the car (I took Libby, Yana’s hobbyhorse, and Tess’s currycomb, to be signed by her btw) because it was getting tiring carrying Libby everywhere. Dad suggested we watch one of Amanda’s demonstrations before we put the stuff back, and I agreed. Amanda’s clinic was actually really really interesting. She was riding a young inexperienced pinto, with really cool blue eyes, and explained that english riders in particular put so much preassure on their horses. For example – you want the horse to move forward, and when it does, you keep squeezing and kicking with your legs and holding it’s face. Horses DO NOT like pressure. They instinctivly move away from it, which is how we get them to move forward or sideways or backwards – by applying pressure and guiding them away from it, which is in the direction we want to go. So when a rider squeezes and kicks but is also holding the face tight and tapping the horses’ bum, there is literally NOWHERE the horse can go, so it starts rearing and crabs-stepping and resorting to fight or flight. When Amanda was working with her young pinto, she explained she was asking him a question, like ‘come find my right hand’ which means in non-horsey terms, come turn in to this hand, and when he didn’t do it straightaway and started pawing or shifting restlessly, she did not apply more pressure. If your teacher was asking you a difficult question and you didn’t know the answer and had to work it out, it wouldn’t help if they kept asking ‘DO YOU KNOW IT DO YOU KNOW IT DO YOU KNOW THE ANSWER HURRY UP COME ON’. You’d get distressed and lose focus. It’s the same principle with asking horses to do something.

After the clinic, I headed back for the car, and by luck Kelly Wilson was at the Kaimanawa stand!!! I asked her if she would sign Libby and Tess’s brush for me, and she said of course. There were people behind me, so I didn’t get my brush signed, but that’s OK because I had Dandy signed last year. At least I fufilled my promise to my cousins ❤️Then we put Libby and the other things back in the car, and headed back. We went into the Taupo Equestrian Supplies shop, and I tried on some gloves. These ones were sooo nice, I was a bit obsessed. They were by LeMieux, and in the brown colour so they would match Maz’s brown saddlery, and I could use them for show hunter AND showjumping if they still fitted me by the time I was good enough to do that. They looked sooo fancy, and they had grips on the thumb and second finger, so the reins don’t slip through your fingers, and to be honest, that is an issue I have myself. I don’t pull Maz’s head up when he has it hanging down, so his movements become slow and flat. Mostly I was just so excited that they fit my long fingers and small hands and looked soooo nice. So I bought them! I can’t believe I own a pair of fancy LeMieux show gloves! I also got myself a long dressage whip. It was pretty bland and not very pretty-looking, but that was nothing a horse charm, leather bow and powder blue ribbon couldn’t fix!

I watched lots more clinics and show hunter classes, of which I’ve got below so you can see some of them too! Equifest this year was so so fun, and thanks Dad for coming with me!

This Equifest was incredible, and I’m so so lucky to be able to go! I learnt so much and I’m not going to pretend I’m not BUZZING OUT with my whip and gloves ha ha! byeee!!! – Stella