What I Wish I Knew Before my First Live Show

Now that we're at home and have so much time, why not prep for a show? That's what I've been doing a tad of!

So, you want to live show? Awesome, but how? Who are you going to bring? Where will you show? In what division will you enter? Hopefully, I can help clear up some of those questions :)

What are you Going to Bring? 

This question is one that many showers face (no matter your experience level, it's always a good idea to continue to improve in any aspect you can). Some of my favorite videos that have helped me immensely are:

Typically, I tend to narrow down I bring by:

1. Going through the classlist and choosing who would work for each class 
2. From there, I narrow it down by prioritizing those with the fewest flaws, best confirmation, so on and so forth. 
3. Now I should have anywhere zero to, perhaps, four models. Zero models entered in a class is perfectly fine! It makes the day of the show less stressful and, thus, more enjoyable! I get more in-depth on this in a previous post. 
4. Because I prefer not to pay "overflow" fees (typically $1 for each model exceeding the class limit, which is normally two per entrant per class), I'll do my best to narrow it down to two models for any given class. You can also see an example of that at a show in my first Sea to Bay 2020 recap! 

Placing your Model in the Ring: 

This, arguably, is one of the most important aspects of showing, since how your model is presented is how it's judged! Don't get too freaked out, though, showing is meant to be a lot less stressful, admittedly, than many showers do (myself included). The main things to keep in mind are: 

• Show side 
• Breed 
• Condition 

What is a Show Side? 

At the minimum, it is the side that the horse is facing (all photos credit to IdentifyYourBreyer.com).  Some easier molds to tell the show side vs. the off side are these: 

Show side

Show side

Show side

Off side

Off side 

Off side 

What Breed Should I Assign? 

Now, if you would like to see more about how I assign breeds, you can find it here!

I hope this might clarify a few things, and I look forward to seeing any of y'all at shows after all this craziness :)

Disclaimer: I, myself, am not an expert by any means and am learning still. I consider myself to be (subjectively) new to the world of live showing, but I still believe I have some valuable knowledge to give. I hope this helped!