2025 Missouri Extravaganza

Before we delve into the past, I want to revisit the most recent horse show while it’s still somewhat fresh!

The 2025 Missouri Extravaganza was our first show of the year, and it was all new things! Well, sort of, I guess. Chrome was making his dressage debut, and it was my first show on Mark. I’d only had less than a handful of lessons on Mark since buying him back in October, so we all knew it was going to be a learning experience.

Slight disclaimer before continuing here. I am going to focus more on my horses not in professional training in this blog, at least in the current aspects. That means Mark will just be mentioned more in passing than the other four, and Chrome will likely have the most.

Chrome had a great pre-show work on Thursday. We had the dressage ring to ourselves, and despite him thinking the tiny white rail and box letters were weird for a lap, he settled in and worked well. It was SO nice to have it to ourselves. Like, I can’t emphasize that enough. Warm ups at shows can be chaos, so it was not to sit that out one day!

Naturally, because it’s the kind of luck that I have, I kicked off the show with both horses having classes within an hour of each other. Chrome was first, and he was a good boy! Really, it was better than expected in some ways. I then had to switch gears to show Mark, who was also a good boy! Both boys ended up with a blue ribbon, and Chrome scored just over 69% in his test.

For those unfamiliar with dressage, a 70% or above is pretty exceptional. I was aiming to be in the mid 60s for this show, to exceed that was just lovely. I wasn’t asking for a lot from him yet. I just wanted softness and a steady rhythm. In our test on Saturday, we scored slightly higher with a 69.600% in Training Level Test 3. I was honestly concerned that test wouldn’t be great as he still thinks some of the movements aren’t “right” compared to his few years of showing hunter pleasure, but he listened well. He also felt more relaxed in the ring in this test, which I’m sure helped out our scores.

All in all, it was a nice show! I have things to work on for myself with both horses, which never bothers me. It’s all about the journey to improving while you learn.