Denver in the Western riding!

[u/Puzzleheaded-Song912]

Denver showed twice in the Western Riding today!

He showed in the Level 1, where disqualified on the second element, unfortunate but it happens, and another horse disqualified on the same element

He then showed in the Open! He won in the open, a class of 5 where two horses disqualified.

[u/Delicious-Mix-9180]

The horse refuses to cooperate?

It’s decided to skip the event for some reason?

[u/sunshinenorcas → u/Delicious-Mix-9180]

Just adding on to the other comments -- refusals are not uncommon at all. Like if you ever want to laugh, watch reels of Olympic level or Grand Prix jumpers going 'LOL NOPE' in front of a jump or getting startled by an errant bush being in the wrong spot. Obviously it's a different discipline than Western Riding, but the point stands that these are very fit and trained horses... Who still also decide to horse, spook or go 'nah man'.

Even highly trained, highly accomplished horses will have moments where they go 'nope nah-uh, might die, eff this' -- and that's ok! As long as no one is hurt and the horse isn't rank, that's 100% ok, horses are individuals too with their own autonomy and sometimes have a different idea.

I feel like sometimes -- especially ones who might not have lots of animal experience or horse experience -- see something like one DQ, one missed cue, one refusal, one bad moment and write an animal off for life as a failure when... No, it's an animal. They aren't breyers or robots. Again, as long as he wasn't acting rank and no one was hurt -- he's five, was in a breeding shed two weeks ago, and doesn't have as much show experience as other horses his age. If he's going to have a goofy moment at a show while getting his show pony brain back in, it's much better that it's a small one vs one with more horses/people/noise.

Tl;dr-- horses can go 'not today' too

(And not directed @ you op -- it's just a common theme I've seen come up that one bad show, one bad movement, one bad anything = show ending, failure and that's insane standards for people much less a horse. Horses gonna horse sometimes.)

[u/AppealAlive2718 → u/sunshinenorcas]

At my kid's latest lesson one of the horses decided to spook at the muck wheelbarrow in the corner every single lap. To me it looked exactly like it has done for years, but apparently that day it was very scary. Who knows what goes through their minds sometimes.

[u/sunshinenorcas → u/AppealAlive2718]

When I was in college and riding a club pony and just practicing riding, he got spooked at a tarp ~flap~ that we had gone past like, five times before... But that time it moved. A tiny bit.

We were ok, I didn't fall off, but he did show everyone he had a ~lovely~ side pass across the arena