Help me with editing...

[talausa]

I need help and a few others to look over my simple essay for my Equine Affair tryout this year. The essay is below. I need you to look out for grammar, spelling, skipped words, ect. Please post your edits with what paragraph and sentence they are in. Thank you everyone.

O.o.O.oO.o.O.oO.o.O.oO.o.O.oO.o.O.o




Amaya has been with me since she was little under a year old. When we got her I had no real plans for what we were going to do with our time together. I was raised riding mostly western. I had never competed at that point so we decided to try her as a western horsemanship horse.

We tried showmanship and halter till she was old enough to start under saddle. After one show she made it clear she didn’t care for the idea of halter. Mind you she was very good to handle in hand. We spent countless hours doing halter and ground work with her, she could do it. She just didn’t want to show in it. When she barely missed kicking the judge in the head when he wasn’t looking I knew that was it for our halter showing. After the disaster in halter showing I spent more time focusing on learning things like lunging, join up, and desensitizing methods. Amaya became very tolerant of having whatever was laying around draped on her and thrown to her. During times when we had nothing better to do we would build obstacle courses. She was still kind of short at the time and would walk under ladders and even walk through a sprinkler when it was on. As proof of her calm personality she had a blast walking in a 4th of July parade that summer. The sound of drums, sirens, cheering, and dogs barking did nothing, but make her walk with more spring in her step and her head held high as if she was a one horse parade.

When it came to start Amaya under saddle my mother decide she should be the one to do it. I had never been on a green broke horse let alone start one, so her reasoning was sound. Amaya didn’t really have many problems during the workouts with my mother that I know of. Life however got in the way and my mother had to stop working with Amaya. Time passed and I grew increasingly impatient in the lack of progress made. My adopted aunt and my mother’s best friend had taken notice and decided I should saddle Amaya up and start working with her my self under supervision. Without telling my mother I got to sit on Amaya for the first time. I was scared out of my mind that I would do something wrong, but when Amaya turned her head to look at me all that fear vanished. We took our first steps that day together. After that our working had purpose.

We started in a light western saddle and a side pull bridle. First, without a bit and then moving up to one with a snaffle. To this day I don’t know how they talked me into taking up riding English, let alone dressage. We went to our first dressage shows doing group classes. I was terrified and Amaya went along like she was born to the show ring. We took a blue ribbon home our second show. That summer we went to fair together. We didn’t place well due to Amaya not knowing how to back up, but we had tons of fun. Amaya even cantered for me for the first time without another horse to lead her. Lessons were taken off and on, more shows came and went. The next year at fair Amaya and I qualified for the English Horsemanship Championship class. I don’t know how we did it, but we beat the four other champs from the past years that day. I can remember sitting in the line up looking at everyone’s numbers trying to figure out who won. I never thought we stood a chance, but it seems the judge thought otherwise. I screamed and about fainted off Amaya, my mom screamed and dropped the video camera, and my group cheered.
Things continued as normal. Lessons off and on, shows here and there, ect. Till January 10, 2008 when Amaya had to be rushed to Rood and Riddle for emergency colic surgery. I watch her surgery, I refused to leave till I knew her fate. The following months were trying for everyone, but we have always had wonderful people looking out for us. The first time we rode again that spring I cried. All of our hard work was but back to square one. Some how we were able to be ready for our last year at fair. We have yet to reach beyond training level in dressage due to other set backs. A year or two after her surgery Amaya came in from the field with a gash in the mussel tissue on her front left shoulder. Yet again she over came the odds and we went back into working. I ended up damaging my back and couldn’t ride for a month or two after we had been back to work for a few months. Despite these set backs and with the help of my adopted aunt we went to a few shows the following show season and got a 71% on our last test of the season.

Now we train with Isabelle Brown. She has been a big help getting us back into shape after being out of consistent work for almost a year. During our break we went to our first jumping show and got a few ribbons. We are currently looking for someone to teach us more then just how to get over a jump and not fall off. Amaya has been a great friend, partner, and fur baby. She takes good care of me at shows and puts up with me when we got to fun shows and I dress her up for costume classes. I don’t think I could of ever picked a better horse to spend my life with.