This weekend I took the Friesians to the Texas Inspections.  This is a bit like a conformation show like we do for the dogs but it's for the horses.  They evaluate the structure and movement of the horses and then award scores based on their criteria.  The judges and crew are from the Netherlands and they travel to the US annually to assess our breeding stock which is amazing and an honor to hear what they said and to see all the horses in our area that attended.

I did the IBOP (riding test) with Jade as well.  This was her first time trying to even show at any fancy venues and she did her best.  I gave her some free rein at times to encourage her to be more how they "prefer" but all in all, I rode like I would at a dressage show.  We earned a 72.5 which is respectable especially never having seen one of these done in person.

Zoe was evaluated and was a demon of a baby horse.  She tried to kick the judges during the height measuring, tried to kick and charge me in her stall, and was just lit.  We did some more of our ground work and she settled in somewhat and was manageable for her turn in the ring.  I had only had her for 2 weeks so knew this was going to be a lot on her brain and I wasn't wrong.  She did her job and was fairly sane most of the time so I'll take that as a win.

All in all it was a rather interesting experience but the people were all really awesome and love their horses.  With such a small breed everyone has to play nice on some level but it was nice when everyone made appearances at dinner (not something I see much in the other sports I participate in).  Everyone loved Jade and were fascinated by how broke she was.

​It was a very good experience and we'll see if we can get to it next year in our show schedule!

While we've been taking him places periodically to get him out and about, today was the first day of Ghost's public access training!  This essentially means that his obedience phase is ending and he's transitioning into the next phase of his Service dog training - a bit like a graduation!

Our first real outing was to the car wash, Home Depot, then to Starbucks.  We go without an actual agenda (i.e. I'm pretending to shop and can leave at a moment's notice if he needs help) and he was a little excited and looky but he quickly joined in with the training I asked from him.

The chocolate kisses came to the farm to get some additional exposure to things and the first thing we did was let them play in the pool!  Everyone had a great time and had a fantastic nap afterwards!  They will stay at the farm this week and then start going home soon!