Bette has my vote for America's Favorite Trail Horse

Saturday I hopped in the truck and headed over to the auditions for America's Favorite Trail Horse, a new reality tv series in the making, sponsored by the American Competitive Trail Horse Association. Petra Christensen, a regular reader and commenter on this blog, mentioned she would be coming down from Colorado for the event, and since I love putting names with faces, I jumped at the chance to meet her in person. As an added bonus, the event was being held at a facility where Lucy and I will be heading in May for a mule and donkey training clinic. I'd never been there and have been wanting to check it out.

The auditions took place in an indoor arena – not exactly home turf for a lot of these trail horses. Each horse and rider team was expected to trot over a set of six poles, trot to another pole, come to a stop, then sidepass over it to the right, then back a figure eight around two cones. The rider then had the option to showcase their horse for 45 seconds in a freestyle exhibition. Then came an interview with the judge, where the rider was given a few minutes to talk about why their horse was special.

As I watched the riders audition, of course I imagined how Lucy and I might do in such a competition. She would have sailed over the six poles in her pretty little gait, aced the stop and sidepass, and flunked the back-up figure eight (but we're working on that). The worst part for me would be the interview - I would be a blubbering mess trying to tell the judges why and how Lucy came into my life and what a one-of-a-kind donkey she is.

Anyway, I watched about half the riders, then headed outside to see if there were any interesting pictures to be taken there...

...whereupon I met Ashley (the rider), Bette (the Paint), and Milli Vanilli, aka Little Dude (the five-week-old colt whose daddy is a Friesian).

What's not to love about a five-week-old, well-mannered colt who can be ponied and stay out of trouble and not flip out over all the new stuff going on around him? Little Dude is who he is because Ashley is an amazing horsewoman and Bette is the most level-headed horse I have ever been around.

I asked Ashley if she had someone to babysit Little Dude while she auditioned on Bette (of course I was planning to raise my hand and volunteer). Ashley replied that she was planning to either pony the colt through the obstacles or just let him follow along, depending on what the judges would allow. Alrighty then! How cool would this be!

The trio lined up at the starting cones, and Ashley secured Little Dude's little lead line around his belly so it would stay out of his way.

Off they went, trotting over the six poles. Little Dude may have missed a few, but Bette aced them.

Little Dude was very impressed with Bette's sidepassing ability.

As Bette was backing her figure eight, Little Dude was getting thirsty and hoping his mom 

would stop long enough for him to get a drink. No such luck.

He took a pee break, then realized his mom was now at the other end of the arena and he was all by his lonesome. 

I would show you the picture of him running to catch up but it's a total blur...the little guy is fast!

So now it's time for Ashley to do her freestyle. We've all seen riders stand up on their horses' backs 

to demonstrate how calm and steady their horses are...

...but how many times have you seen a rider stand on her head on her horse's back...with the horse wearing the rider's hat on its butt and nursing her colt at the same time? As one of the judges said, "Now there's a mare that can multitask."

Bette has definitely got my vote for America's Favorite Trail Horse. I'm certain she'll move on to the next round of the competition, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she wins the whole thing.