Equine Event Shepton Mallet  23/24 th November 2002

Equine Event at the Bath & West showground.

Exbury Am-EX & Sheena Atkinson

This was the first event of this sort that Amee & I had attended.  Joyce had arrived with Joe Glow on the Friday evening he was going to be on display at the ApHC stand, as the organisers had decided that you could not take a horse out of the stall to go into the ring so Amee and I would do the display!!  Saturday morning we set off, Paul came with us for some moral support, went to the wrong car park and had to negotiate round the cars coming in to get back out!! Once in the right car park I opened the trailer up for Amee and went off to find Joyce on the stand.  Heather Julian was also there and they were having a busy time, went off to get them coffees and have a quick look round.  It was soon time to get Amee out and tacked up, thought I would ride him in the bosal, as it looks good, having control with not much on him (little did I know) there wasn't really anywhere to warm up, so just went along the road to a small gravel area and had a jog around, he was in English mode, head in air trying to take it all in, horses and ponies going up and down some with owners in fancy costumes. A lady was there trying to organise us for the breed parade, being Appaloosa we were first in, 'keep walking round' she said, by the time we got in the ring (it was quite small) we had to stop to let all the breeds in, so it was impossible to keep walking, we were nose to tale!!  Then the man on the microphone said 'will the Appaloosa stay in and everyone else go out' Amee did not like that 'where were all the others going' he was on his toes ready for action. Why didn't I put the bit in his mouth!!!!! I stopped him at the top of the ring in the middle facing out to the crowd (yes, we did have a crowd) he went into reverse mode, straight back down the ring, it was most impressive, so I made it look like we meant to do it!  Paul had put a couple of poles out, thought we'd do a bit of backing up and side passing. The man on the microphone was talking about Appaloosas and Amee (I thought) so in to lope, (canter round) luckily it was small so he couldn't get up to much speed, then was just thinking of my side pass and he'd finished talking!! That was never 7 minutes, anyway, we did a fast side pass and out we went, to find he did not have the paperwork with Amee's information!! That was day one.

The next day we arrived early as Amee was being used for an Aromatherapy display, this is another story in itself, so I won't go into details, just to say we will never, ever do it again!!  I spoke to the lady organising it to say I would not stay in the ring but come out with everyone else, then go back in. This worked very well, Amee was a lot calmer and did a much better display. People came up to us outside and said it was really nice and asked about the bosal and why wasn't the person using one that was doing the western display in the main ring!!!  I could of stood with Amee all day and let people stroke him and ask questions it was really nice.  After putting him in the trailer we went back to the stand, they were having a really busy time, JG was getting lots of visitors Joyce had nearly lost her voice with all the talking she was doing!! We then headed home, we did enjoy it.  I think the organisers will have to think again for this year as there really were too many of us in such a small ring, but unless someone else wants to do it, Amee and I will be available for this year!  Just to finish off. Judith Hubbard of the Devon Western Riding Club, sent Amee's story off to the new Western Rider UK magazine, it was featured in February's addition along with a couple of photo's.  That's it, I expect your all getting ready for the coming season and the annual show at Moreton Morrell, see you there.

Sheena Atkinson