Drumroll PLEASE.... Congress Novice Am Pattern...

Ok, here is the long awaited Congress Novice Amateur Pattern (and I'm almost positive it was the Novice Youth and NYATT patterns also...)...so without further adieu...

Findings:

• Be ready BEFORE the judge signals you...do NOT make the judge wait on YOU...
• Center your horse's nose on cone 2 before you set up...and make sure you leave several walk steps BEFORE cone 1.
• Trot to cone 2 and stop with ENOUGH ROOM so that you can perform your 270.
• This is where a LOT of people had problems...the inside circle, some horses trotted ahead of their exhibitors thus making it difficult for the exhibitor to see and end directly in front of the judge, lots of exhibitors OVER did their circle and had to steer IN to get their horse to land in front of the judge. I also saw a lot of odd shaped circles...
• Make sure when you stop you give yourself 1 1/2 arms length away from the judge so that you can complete your 90 without running into the judge.
• Back STRAIGHT for AT LEAST 6 steps.
• This 270 killed a LOT of people BECAUSE THEY QUIT SHOWING, they needed to pull their horse slightly forward so it would pivot on the correct (horses right hind) foot.
• Trot straight away and quickly...at this point they want you out of the arena and are waiting for the next go.

A Thank You and an Explanation

First, those that have emailed me, I want to thank you, I read and try to reply to each email and for those that have commented I've tried to leave comments back also...it's been a very rough few months, so my showmanship blog has suffered greatly! (obviously)...and I know many of you have been anxiously awaiting my take on the Congress pattnerns... I just wanted to assure you I WILL get to those this week, and plan on returning to the showmanship blog with patterns at least ONCE a week...

The REASON I fell so far behind is that my dh broke his rib 1 WEEK before congress, and when you break a rib there isn't much you can do, he was in severe pain, he couldn't even tie his shoes! So I went to having a partner at home and in our horse training business to be the sole provider for EVERYTHING! Then add the pressure of the holidays on top of it, and let's just say I was a bit overwhelmed and I needed some time to recover as dh FINALLY has...so now we're almost back to "normal".

I'm going to extend this offer out...if you have a showmanship pattern you would like to see "dissected" email it to me (kevinpaulacarr@aol.com) and I will dissect it here on the blog and it might even get practiced here for further dissection.

Again, thank you for your patience and (as soon as I figure out where they are) I'll get the Congress patterns up no later than Monday...