When I was a little girl, I had my very first horse show at a local schooling hunter-jumper show. I remember when Laurel, my riding coach, asked me if I would like to go. I was giddy with excitement and couldn’t be more proud of myself. I rode a school horse named Little Sundance.
The day before the show I brought home the barn’s tack that I would be using to be cleaned. My dad, who is one of my greatest supporters, was so excited that I was invited to show that he stayed up all night with me to clean my tack. We had no idea what we were doing, so we soaked all the leather in water and polished every piece of leather with polish and a buffer.
I remember the night before the show. I was so excited I could barely calm my nerves. I woke up with sweaty palms in the middle of the night with so much excitement that I couldn’t fall back to sleep. The next morning we packed the horse and all the tack and headed to the small show. I rode in the cross bar classes with Little Sundance, where I did my best to jump all the jumps the first time. My tack was certainly shiny, but I could be heard squeaking from three arenas because my tack was all polished.
And, because we had soaked my bridle in water…
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