Young horses have a tendency to improve by leaps and bounds once certain things about the job they’re being asked to do start to click. That has certainly been the case with Maverick since my last installment.

For a while I thought I was way behind schedule for my plan to take him to his first show in early May. But the second half of April was full of huge improvements under saddle, so I decided to enter him in the Sayre Horse Show at Masterson Station.

Jordan Sigmon and Maverick at Sayre Horse Show. (Daniella Ricci photo)

While he has the scope and the heart to probably be jumping three-foot courses already I want to take my time with him and develop him up the levels the right way. So, we began his career in the Greenie and Starter divisions, and honestly going into the show I wasn’t even sure if I would jump the Starter course.

Taking a young horse to their first show can be an adventure. Luckily for me, Maverick took everything in quite well. He had plenty of green moments as expected but for the most part they happened outside of the show ring. Walking up to the dressage ring for his first test, I could tell his eyes were pretty big at the new environment and all of the hustle and bustle of a typical horse show. But when I asked him to focus on me, he went right to work. There was a bit of tension and first-time jitters in his Greenie test but his quality shone through and he put up a score of 32.2. For me that was already a personal best, so I was thrilled.

When it came time to go back in for his Starter test, Maverick was even better. I could tell he was really understanding what he was there to do and relaxing into the work. His greenness showed in downward transitions but most of his test was beautiful and he improved on the previous test to score a 28 this go around. Going into the show my two goals were to not forget my tests and not fall off, so to break my personal best dressage score twice on a 5-year-old at his first show was incredible.  

Now on to the jumping! I wasn’t entirely sure how this part would go either. He has definitely been a more cautious type of horse schooling at home and had not seen bright-colored show jumps except for one time. I was a bit concerned that would rattle him a little bit. We’re also still working on that whole steering thing going around a course so that was a bit of a concern as well, but he was a total pro when it came time for us to go around the course.

In the Greenie round, I stuck with my plan to trot into all of the lines. Like many Thoroughbreds he’s “more go than whoa” when it comes to jumping, so I want him to learn to slow his brain down early on. He went clear and was so rideable and straight throughout I couldn’t have been any happier.

Maverick exceeded expectations at Sayre Horse Show. (Daniella Ricci photo)

I did decide to go ahead and jump the Starter course as well and boy am I glad we did. He went even better than the previous round, even cantering two of the lines. You can see in the picture at the top of this blog what he thinks about the low height of the jumps at the moment.

We ended up finishing up fourth in the Greenie division, seventh in our section of the Starter division, and were reserve in the T.I.P. awards for the Starter division as well. Given what my goals were headed into the show, I could not be more thrilled with these results. What a way to kick off a career! It really made me reflect on why I love Thoroughbreds so much. They’re true work horses and they seem to have a knack for knowing when it’s time to get serious.

Of course, all could not go perfect. When it came time to leave Maverick decided he had so much fun that he was not getting back on the trailer to go home. We tried for probably an hour to no avail with my trailer. Finally, a friend of mine came up with her trailer which is a big open stock-type trailer and he hopped right into hers. We drove over to her farm and backed her trailer up to mine to hop him straight to my trailer from hers. Not the most conventional method, but it worked. It’s safe to say he and I are going to have several trailer workshop days in the next few weeks.

Looking forward, we’ll be headed to Meadowlake for one of their mini-trials on June 14 to introduce him to cross country. Hopefully, if all goes well there, we’ll make our horse trial debut at Midsouth Pony Club Horse Trials the following week. Regardless of the results on paper, I have a super-exciting horse for the future and I’m so glad I stuck with it when he was a feral toddler in the beginning.

The Jockey Club supports many aftercare initiatives including the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, the only accrediting body in aftercare, and Thoroughbred Incentive Program (T.I.P.), which encourages the retraining of Thoroughbreds into other disciplines upon completion of careers. View all of the initiatives supported by The Jockey Club.