Max Man – ready for prime time or past prime time?

If you know me, you probably know my horse Max.  We go to the reining shows together and we have a blast.  At least about 92% of the time.

This is a picture of Max doing his thing.  Pretty impressive, right?  I like this picture a lot because you can’t see my face.  I’m usually making a ridiculous face during a stop. I have no idea why.  But you would think from my facial expression that I am either in complete shock that we have actually managed to stop or I have had my toe stepped on by an elephant.  Why in the world do I make those faces?  Oh well.. I digress.

Anyway…   Max has had a bit of an attitude issue of late in the show pen.  I’m trying to figure out whether he really wants to do this reining thing anymore. He’s been going at it since he was two and he’s 13 now.  I mean, I’m sure he’s a little over it.  Our last show he bucked three times with me in the rundown before the stop.  Each buck is like a 5 point deduction or something ridiculous so needless to say we were out of the running in the first 20 seconds of the pattern.   I think he figured out he could get away with a bit more in the pen than in practice because he never pulls those stunts at the barn.  Max is definitely one to take advantage of opportunity…. if you know what I mean!  He practically molested a woman with crackers in her pocket at an exhibition. I am just lucky she didn’t file charges! Anyway…

So the first show of this year…  which was a few weeks ago… I showed him three times!! And I will say… . by the third time he was quite the good boy. We got 3rd.  Which is better than 27th which we got last show.   ( Oh- and we probably placed like 200th at the Congress when he spooked at a pickup truck advertisement…  world’s biggest horse show and he’s the ONLY horse that spooked at the truck ad! ) But Max has a flare for the dramatic and he made me feel kind of guilty about showing him in all those classes.   Poor little guy!!  Pitiful!!  (Oh- and sorry about the iPhone picture..)

Then he woke up and had shavings on one side of his head and hay on the other!

So I don’t know if I’ll work him that much in the next show. It’s in a few weeks. The saga continues..  🙂 But we are definitely having fun!