AQHA World Show Recap — One Fine Bay

Nov 9

Nov 9 AQHA World Show Recap

It’s been a whirlwind few days around here as Dreamer and I realized a life long dream of showing at The American Quarter Horse World Championship Show. For as long as I can remember I have spent two weeks in November consumed with the AQHA World Show. My parents always had box seats and we would go watch lots of the events and all of the finals, spending weekends roaming the barns and shopping what used be an amazing trade show full of all things horse to buy! I always said some day I will get to show at it, but it is super hard to get qualified to show at, meaning hauling all over the country for almost a year in order to earn enough points to get qualified. But this year due to COVID they made the show non-qualifying and added Level 1 Amateur Classes.

So in September I decided I wanted to take Dreamer and show him in the Level 1 Amateur Ranch Riding. I have never shown Dreamer before (he was Garrett’s reining horse) and I have never shown the ranch riding before so, we had a steep learning curve! But both us relished the challenge because why the heck not, might as well take advantage of the show not being qualifying while we can! I started riding and practicing every day and even hauled over to our trainer for lessons. Dreamer was happy to go back to work and was an excellent partner.

We moved into the show on Thursday and I showed on Sunday and let me tell you it was chaos. The show is the largest in their history and quite frankly there were too many people and too many horses and overall the event seemed ill-prepared and not very well-run. Oh and did I mention there was also a huge horse sale with the stalls for it taking up the entire giant covered outdoor arena and the only indoor arena that was not being used to show in, that we were planning on being able to ride in. Because the classes were so huge the days were running really late and the arenas did not open for general riding until well after midnight and then there are few hours dedicated to only certain exhibitors. So there was literally no where to ride and my wonderful husband would get up at 3:00am and go ride Dreamer for me.

But all that aside, it was still super exciting to be able to show at such a prestigious show. Dreamer showed really well for me but we did not place in the top ten because my long trot and extended lope were too slow (still working on trusting him and pushing him faster than I want to go). But I had an absolute blast and as soon as I came out of the ring I said I want to go do that again! My husband gave me some of the best ringside advice ever when he said, just ride with joy! And boy did I ever!