Paige Bunn remembers the hard landing.
The North Bend teen was riding her horse, Oliver, at a show in Lincoln when a camera flash startled the animal.
“All of a sudden he spooked and jumped and he went one way and I went the other and fell off,” she said.
Paige landed on her head and shoulder. That hurt, but didn’t stop her from competing.
“I got back up and finished the class,” Paige said, adding, “For me, it’s always important to get back on and keep going.”
With these and other insights, Paige was among teens and youths competing at the Fremont 4-H Expo Horse Show on Wednesday.
The expo, which is free and open to the public, gives area youth a chance to polish their skills before competing at their own county’s fair and the Nebraska State Fair, said Jay Schroeder, expo co-manager.
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This is the 93rd year for the event, which features 10 livestock shows, and continues through Saturday. Between 400 and 500 exhibitors from a nine-county area participate in the annual expo at Christensen Field in Fremont.
Paige and her 13-year-old sister, Kelsey Bunn, waited quietly with their dad, Mike, and their horses before the siblings competed in different classes.
For the expo, Paige rode a solid paint-quarter horse, named Scooter. She’s had the horse for three years.
“A friend actually let me lease him for a while. Eventually, we bought him,” Paige said.
Paige has worked with Scooter for hours.
“There’s a lot to it,” she said of training large animals. “When you get a new horse, you have to work to bond with them so you understand how they’re going to react when you ask them to do different things.”
It takes skill to work with an 1,100-pound animal.
“Every show we go to, I’d say there’s a lot of practice that goes on beforehand,” Paige said, adding, “the night before, he gets a bath and all these fun, little bands put in his mane.”
The decorative bands indicate that a rider has put effort into getting the horse ready for the show.
“Judges like to see that they (riders) spent time with them and not just woke up that morning and came to the fair — that they take time to present their exhibit well,” Mike said.
Kelsey competed with her pinto-paint horse named, Pearl, who weighs about 1,200 pounds.
Admittedly, such a large animal might seem intimidating to some.
“They are a lot bigger than you are,” Kelsey noted.
But Kelsey isn’t deterred by the animal’s size.
“I’ve grown up around a lot of different kinds of horses,” said Kelsey, who was about 5 years old when she rode the first one.
She recalls her first riding experience.
“It was definitely a nerve-wracking experience, but with time and practice, it becomes easier,” Kelsey said.
Like Paige, Kelsey has learned how her horse reacts in different situations.
Kelsey knows that a loud sound from a speaker or people in a crowd or a car door slam can startle Pearl.
She can tell when Pearl is upset. For one, the horse flattens its ears against the back of its head.
“She always has her ears pinned back and she flaps her lip,” Kelsey said.
Kelsey knows what to do when that happens.
“(We) take a break and let her stop and think about it and calm down,” Kelsey said, adding that she’ll also walk the horse in a circle.
This gives Pearl a chance to realize the thing that scared her isn’t as bad as she thinks.
“And Kelsey — her teammate — is there to help her,” Mike said.
Kelsey has made good memories with Pearl, including a humorous one that occurred at another show.
At the time, they were competing in an English class when a stirrup—and the leather that hooks it to the saddle — detached while they were in the show ring.
Riders depend on the stirrup for English classes — more than they do for Western classes — and Kelsey could have fallen off of her horse, Mike said.
But Kelsey hung on.
“We just kept going,” Kelsey said. “Nobody noticed (the detached stirrup) until we turned around and the judge could see I was hanging onto the stirrup with my foot.”
That’s when Kelsey and Pearl became show-stoppers.
The judge halted the class and fixed the stirrup.
“It was kind of a nervous moment, but it was kind of funny, too,” Kelsey said.
The competition on Wednesday progressed calmly. Scooter and Pearl almost appeared sleepy as they waited for their riders to guide them into the arena.
Other young competitors visited quietly among themselves. Nearby, a couple of horses ate from cloth bags attached to a trailer.
The siblings work with their horses appears to have paid off.
Paige placed third overall among the exhibitors. She earned champion honors in the Senior Western Pleasure (style of riding) and Senior Western Horsemanship and reserve champion awards in the Senior English Pleasure class and English Equitation in which the rider and horse travel in a pattern.
Kelsey earned champion awards in Intermediate Western Pleasure, Intermediate Western Horsemanship and intermediate showmanship. She earned purple ribbons in senior English Pleasure and English Equitation.
Wednesday’s show would be yet another equine experience for the teens.
And looking back, Paige even recalled that although she had a hard fall at the Lincoln show, she learned something from it.
“I learned to listen more to my horses’ cues so I’d be more prepared if they did spook, so I don’t fall off,” she said.
The expo continues with various shows including: the 4-H Sheep Show at 9 a.m. Thursday, July 13; 4-H Beef Show at 9 a.m. and Dairy Show, 4 p.m., Friday, July 14; and 4-H Swine Show, 8 a.m. Saturday, July 15, at Christensen Field.