Horses, Horses

All summer long, Marty has been part of this program for special needs children where they are taught to show horses, you know, like at a county fair.

The program ends with a showing at an actual county fair. Which was today.

My wife has been the one taking him the whole time, every Wednesday unless there was lightning, so I only had a passing idea of what was going on. I did go to high school out in farm country and have been to more than my share of county fairs, so I know basically what it means to show a horse, but I didn't really know much about the program.

I had always assumed that the program was for kids with various autism related issues, but it turns out that I was way off-base on that one. While there were other kids with autism, there were also people with various physical handicaps as well. To be honest, Marty and his Asperger's Syndrome, might have been the person least affected by his condition than anyone else from what I could see.

I had the honor of sitting in the stands with Casey during the program. Being a little brother, Casey was kind of interested in seeing Marty do his thing...once. Beyond that, he was far more interested in trying to get me to go sample the wares of the fair's Midway.

When Marty came out for the first time with his grouping -- there were a number of groupings -- he seemed to do fine. They were just leading the horse around for the judges. However, when they awarded places, he actually finished last. My heart sank a little bit. Did I mention that there were other children with really significant physical disabilities?

But, then the next time Marty came up it was for the portion where they show the horse by riding it. Again, being untrained, he seemed to do fine from what I could tell. This time, the results were a little bit different. He pulled a worst to first...and took home a Blue Ribbon!

With Marty anyway, I'm probably never going to experience those moments in sports where he hits a shot or gets a hit. He's just not that interested in those kinds of activities. But, hey, I got this. Equestrian is an Olympic sport after all.

I could see Amy from across the arena and could tell that she was having trouble holding back the tears. Trying to get Marty to participate in anything, especially anything that he doesn't get to be in control of, is like pulling teeth. Having him do it and succeed, is icing on the cake.

Winning his grouping for the event, meant that he got to go one more time for the overall. He ended up being fourth, which still was pretty good since I think he was one of only two first time participants to make it that far...and some of the others, while suffering from more debilitating afflictions, were also significantly older and more familiar with the routine.

Afterward, we celebrated by letting Casey drag us around the attractions and getting some fair food...which is the kind of thing that you can really only do once a year. Well, I guess you technically can do it more often...but you really, really shouldn't.

So, now Marty has a host of multi-colored ribbons that he can display. Interestingly, I think he would've been disappointed if he had gotten a second blue ribbon...he already had one of those and wanted a yellow one.