Sunday horse show with Koko

We took Koko to a show this afternoon (events: race home from church. scramble into show clothes. notice that Koko got himself really dirty after being thoroughly clean in the morning. panic. clean him off. he gets dirty between the time I do him the second time and when we load up. get to show a little late...)
This was the first show I've been to without winning any ribbons, but Koko was great! I couldn't be prouder of him. :-)
First class we did was Bribe your Horse. This was a slightly unfair class in my opinion, because I wasn't allowed to use my own bribe, and Koko can't stand carrots, which was the treat handed out. He meandered around the arena aimlessly for a little while, until I got him going and he started galloping (not for the carrot, but just because) and I ran as hard as I could to get back first (whew) Time? 59.5 seconds. :-P Which is pretty pitiful as compared to last years curly show where we did the same thing, approximately the same distance too, in 8 seconds flat! It was fun though.
Then we did Western Country Pleasure. He was great! I was super proud of him. We didn't place- but that wasn't a surprise to me as there were 20 horses in the class. (I think we got 6th place. lol)
Then we had the speed classes. This would be the third time he has ever run a barrel or pole pattern, and the very first time for both of us on flags. For poles, we got 39 seconds. flags- I don't know, because the flag didn't stick, but he was fairly fast. I think Dad took a little video of that... Barrels, 24.2 (last place awarded, 5th, was 21) He was so good, and it was fun to run them. After watching some of the speed horses go, I was thankful all over again for Koko. Here I am blessed with a horse who has tons of potential to do well in the speed (if we work on it instead of just going for it 9 months after the last time it was done) and who also has a great temperment, i.e, he behaves wonderfully outside the arena as well and can be ridden in other show classes besides speed. I wouldn't take some of those horses if I was paid to. Sure, I'd ride them... inside an arena. But defenitely not outside!!

Smokey is doing wonderfully, but thanks to a busy schedule and some nasty storms coming this week I probably won't be getting on him until next week. Hopefully I'll be able to post an update (with pictures) soon. :-)