Keep On Showing

Great showmanship exhibitors have that attitude, confident, smiling and a sense of purpose. If something goes wrong, they fix it and go on, they don't let that mistake rain on their parade, they keep showing!
Have you ever noticed that there's always that ONE person at every show that can do no wrong under the judge? They may not have the best pattern, but they win an awful lot. The one thing I've noticed with that ONE person is their ability to SHOW! Doesn't matter what goes wrong, they just keep on showing!
I'll give you a little true to life story that happened to me, many years ago. I was a greener than grass novice, but had practiced and watched quite a bit. The showmanship pattern started with a walk, had a stop to a trot off, so I had been drilling my horse in practice the stop to trot off (everyone knows how to walk right?). So when it was my turn to go, guess what? My horse trotted right off and we should have been WALKING! Now I could have quit showing right there and then, finished my pattern with my head hung low, but at that point I figured, oh well, I'll just do the best I can for my own self worth. So instead of FREAKING OUT, I slowed my pace, and my horse walked and we completed the rest of the pattern with precision. Now this was a fairly large class for me at the time (around 15 with all the people I had been admiring for a long, long time)...and I finished 2nd! If I had given up, I wouldn't have placed at all and I came out 2nd...that was a HUGE win for me at that time! I kept showing through my mistake.
Keep on showing no matter the mistake you make, you never know when someone else will make a mistake bigger than you!