Saturday 19th July

Today we went to New Deer Show, which is fairly local to me. As we were transport sharing with a neighbour only Yew went. The day started early, with lovely grooms Tasha and Katie scrubbing the muddy bits which had appeared courtesy of a night of rain. Yew loaded with only a little persuasion!! The show itself was a little scary.

As the class was so early (8.30am) there was still a lot of setting up being done, and he had a little bit of stage fright in the ring when he spotted several men in yellow jackets carrying ladders/fencing/cups of tea. Probably not helped by my flappy hat which I had to abandon early on (hence the flyaway hair in the photos!) We got a 'lead' from a lovely lady with a welsh pony and he settled as the class went on. The judge was very patient with him and gave us all the time we needed to get our collective act together. We were pulled in fourth initially, out of nine, and moved up to third place after our individual show.

The first place winner went on to get overall champion in the mountain and moorland section, so my boy did good! Nicest bit was the judges big smile and comment of 'what a lovely pony' as she gave us our rosette. Matt did a fantastic job as photographer, and many thanks to Tasha who came all the way from Edinburgh to polish the pony to perfection. I'm always impressed by the way my ponies take pretty much everything I throw at them in their stride, and once again Yew did me proud. Now very much looking forward to Turriff show!