In 2011 I qualified for a trip to the Minnesota 4-H Horse Show. This was a big deal because 4-H’ers from every county in Minnesota will be at the State Fairgrounds to show their horse. I was thrilled that I qualified for the horse show. It was one of my goals to be able to ride in the coliseum at the State Fairgrounds with my horse Turbo one day.

When I arrived to the fairgrounds there was an abundance of people there. It was quite intimidating. The barn was already filled with horses from all the different counties. Some of the counties had as many as 20-25 kids that qualified. Our county had about 25 riders and we only had four state trips so I can’t imagine how big these other counties must have been.

The horse show itself is spread out over the course of four days. The confusing thing was that all the categories were spread out on different days. They had a gaming event each day versus having them all in the same day. All of the Western events spread out as well. The only orderly thing about this horse show was that all of the English events were on Monday. That sucked for me though because I was signed up for mostly English classes. Oh well, this meant I just got to relax and watch everyone else work the first few days. I only showed in two classes on Saturday and Sunday but Monday was my big event.

Monday was the English show day. There was technically two classes all day but they divided each class into its own grade division so it took all day. My first class on Monday was English Pleasure. My pleasure class had about 25-30 kids in it. 25 horses in the arena at one time is pretty crazy. I had to make sure I kept Turbo’s pace steady. The judges like to see that you’re holding your own and not spending a lot of time passing everyone else. We spend the time walking, trotting, and cantering through the dirt floor arena. We had to stop and back, and turn and be able to do the same exact movements the other direction. Once we were finished we lined up in the middle of the arena facing the judge. She walked down the whole line inspecting everyone, seeing how clean we look up close, how well our horses behave, and pick out her favorites.

I remember being so nervous at this point in time. I had no idea what kind of horse the judge likes or doesn’t like. I remember gazing out into the audience. Looking all around at all the lights, chairs, signs. Looking at my friends and family on the sidelines giving me a thumbs up and a great smile. I glance down at Turbo. He was behaving wonderfully. I think he liked being inside the colosseum, or maybe it’s the fact he was getting all this attention and all eyes were on him. Turbo tends to show off in front of a crowd so this was definitely his element.
While the judge was finishing tallying up her scores and deciding who the winner is, all of us riders were still standing in line anticipating, while our horses are biting at the bit to hear the name of the champion to be called. The ring steward began to call out names. He started with 10th place and worked his way down to first. My stomach began to tie itself in a knot. I was so nervous. I would be happy with ourselves if we at least made the cut for the top ten. 10...9...8… still no name called...7… and in 6th place we have Mychala! I was so excited! I got sixth place out of 30 riders. That is pretty good if you ask me. I was thrilled with Turbo and myself for doing so well. We began to exit the arena and claimed our ribbon on the way out. This is one of my most memorable shows. I only showed in four classes over the whole weekend. In three out of my four classes I got 6th place in them. I guess six was our lucky number that weekend.