One morning at 5 o’clock, my mom yelled, “Abigail, wake up!” It was time for my first horse show. I was so excited! Even though I practiced every day for two weeks I was still very VERY nervous. I had so many butterflies in my stomach I couldn’t even eat breakfast. I got dressed in my nice, new show clothes, grabbed my tack and rushed out the door.

I got to the stables, jumped out of the car anxiously and ran to get Jojo, my horse. I got her out of her pasture and walked her to the barn to brush her. I put her in the crossties and started to brush her really good. She was covered in dirt. As I was grooming her I felt as nervous as I was when it was my first time riding. All of the butterflies multiplied. At that moment I thought “This is going to be easy, just like my first time riding.” That all changed when I was trying to get her on the trailer. Right after I was done brushing her, I put all of my tack in the car. I went back to get her to load on the trailer, when I got her she wouldn’t go near the trailer. It took my riding teacher, Kimberly, and I about an hour to get her on. Right once we got her on the trailer and tied her up we ran to the car and left to go to the show.

It took about an hour to get to Equine Country. The whole way there I was silent. Kimberly and my mom were talking the whole time there. When we got there, I jumped out of the car with excitement. I ran to the trailer to get Jojo out. She was kind of scared to back up off of the trailer, but she eventually did. As I started brushing her, she started spooking and jumping around. I thought something was wrong so I looked around to see what was bothering her but nothing was there. Kimberly said she wasn’t used to being here so to just ignore it.

I tacked her up and went to the ring. I got on in the ring and started riding. We walk, trot and cantered for the ten minutes. After we did that we started jumping. When the show finally stared my stomach did a million flips, and was jittering around like a hyper toddler.

When I entered the ring to do my judged round everybody I knew was clapping and cheering for me. “Go Abigail, you can do it,” Kimberly yelled. I started cantering and turned to my first jump and cleared it! I was so excited but I couldn’t just stop. I was in the middle of the course. On the fourth jump, right before I turned to go to the jump she did an enormous buck, that she’s never done before, and I flew off about ten feet away. Kimberly dived over the fence and ran to me in the ring. She grabbed Jojo while I was wiping all of the sand off of me. She asked me “Are you alright? Do you want to finish your course or go home?”

“I’m fine,” I said and got back on Jojo. I started cantering and turned to that jump again. I jumped it and finished all of my other jumps.

Once everybody was done with their course, we all lined up in the middle of the ring and they told us our placements and gave us the ribbons. They called me last but that was good because I got first place!!! My first horse show and I got first place!


After I got my ribbon we went to the trailer to untack and go home. We loaded Jojo and it was easy this time because she was tired and walked right on. As we were leaving I turned back and looked in the ring. There were still people in there but I could imagine myself jumping bigger and better for the next show.

That very day was the best day of my life since I started riding horses. Even though I fell off it was still so fun. Horse showing is fun but very hard!