No family braggin rights here!

I know my husband's been checking this blog, waiting for me to admit defeat at the first shoot of the year. So admit I will, however, all in all, I didn't do too shabby. I did win my division, have some great runs and am now officially an L3. Not bad for a first time out for the year. I did, however, lose to my greatest and most favorite opponent, my husband. Patrick ripped through the stages, even beating out some of New England's known best. I am quite proud, which in reality also gives me bragging rights as his wife to tell everyone how well my husband is doing.
So things went well for the Pages, but not for everyone. There were 32 riders total, many competing for the first time. Before the shoot starts any new riders or riders on new horses must complete a new rider/horse stage. It basically is to show the Rangemaster and Match Director that they can ride safely through a course and that their horse accepts the gunfire. Many times people will attend a clinic, not practice at home then come to their first shoot without a trained horse. This can be very dangerous. A few years ago a new horse almost went through a fence during a shoot at a fair packed with spectators. This horse had no business being in the arena and by the look on the horses face I'm sure he'd agree. It was not only dangerous but gives the sport a bad name. We now require riders who are new or have new horses to complete a run successfully before being allowed to enter the competition. The problem is different people have different definitions of what "successfully" means. ......... On Sunday we had quite a few "young guns" as I call them. Young guns are new shooters who are experienced riders but not experienced mounted shooters. They try to tear through the new rider/horse stage to prove that they know what they're doing. One of these young guns did a face plant in the sand at the end of the rundown and another almost went through the fence before also meeting with the sand. Things are a bit different when you're alone out in the arena with people watching. The horses know the difference, experience or not, people need to take it a bit easy at their first shoot. I've seen horses rear before each shot, I've seen people go out and lead a horse and rider through part of the course until they were at the back end of the arena and only had the rundown to complete, so of course the horse completed the rundown to get the heck out of the arena!!! In most cases, these horses and riders were allowed to compete. We had a few of these situations on Sunday which made for an entertaining yet scary shoot at times.
We also had a slippery spot right around a barrel turn on stage 2. There were 3 horses that went down around the barrel, feet slipping out beneath them. This was the same spot someone went down during warm-ups yet neither the rangemaster or match director made an effort to correct the problem. As a CMSA Certified Rangemaster, I said something to the match director that I had been told it was clay underneath the sand in that spot. He replied that it couldn't be as the area was an old river bed and is gravel. I would have shifted the course so the barrel wasn't over clay and in a dangerous place but nothing was done. The horses continued going down. Many riders decided to take the turn extra wide and slow down. I decided to trot going into, around and away from the barrel as I tend to be overly cautious being responsible for two young souls. It killed my time on that stage but at least I was safe as was my horse. Stage 2 was tense, luckily no one was hurt other than a few bruises.
So other than a few issues things went great. The weather was good except a bit windy which added some challenge to shooting the targets. It was wonderful to see all my friends I hadn't seen all winter. I'm looking forward to the next shoot we'll attend in 3 weeks. Until then, I have some things to work on to improve my times. I'm also going to try and mix things up a bit and get out on trail more. Both Kitt & I get bored just riding in the arena. It's always fun to trail ride with 2 .45's on my waist and see the reaction from people we meet along the way. It opens the door to talk about my sport, which I love doing.
So at the end of the day at my first shoot of the year, I had respectable times and felt good about my performance and Kitt's. I have yet to get the smug look off Patrick's face.