For those of you who don't have a clue what that means:AQHA stands for the American Quarter Horse Association. AQHA shows consist of a wide variety of events including Western Pleasure, Trail, Horsemanship, Equitation and Reining.
Peanut and I went to our first AQHA show in February, and our second AQHA show (pictured at left) at the same facility (Michigan State University), Easter weekend. Peanut earned us an AQHA point on Easter weekend (coincidentally it was also my birthday!). To earn a point, a horse and rider combination must earn 1st, 2nd or 3rd place. 3 points are earned by the first place winner, 2 by the second place winner and we earned 1 point for our third place. Points are added to that horses official record. It's kind of a neat way to keep track of a horse's accomplishments but even more importantly it's a way to determine how successful a potential dam or sire has been in the show ring. For example if I were going to sell Peanut, someone could look her up by her registered name on the AQHA database. Her registered name is Smart Like Jac. From there they could see how many shows she has been to and how many points she has earned. Then, they could also track her bloodlines. If they were interested in seeing her sire's show record, her dam's show record, her brothers, sisters, etc. they would all be readily available.
NRHA stands for National Reining Horse Association. The NRHA is the governing body for the sport of reining world-wide (and not just within the nation as the name suggests). The NRHA is obviously more specific for the sport of reining, and is not limited only to Quarter Horses. Being involved in the NRHA is a little more complex and requires 2 memberships, one to NRHA and one to Reining Canada, as well as a competition licence for the horse. Peanut and I went to our first NRHA show in Hamilton on Mother's Day weekend. We scored 69.5 consistently and earned 2 first place ribbons on the first day in the Rookie Professional class and in the Limited Open. The second day we earned a 2nd in the Rookie Professional and 3rd in the Limited Open. So what the heck is Rookie Professional and Limited Open?
Any person who accepts money to train or teach automatically loses their "Non-Professional" status. So right off the bat I have eliminated a lot of classes I could have potentially shown in (for example the Green as Grass is for people just starting their show career, the Beginner classes, Rookie, and all the Non-Pro classes are out). Within the Open division there are 4 categories: Rookie Professional, Limited Open, Intermediate Open and Open. These categories are all based on the dollar earnings for that rider. NRHA shows award money instead of points like the AQHA. So riders competing in the Rookie Professional must have less than $5,000 in earnings, Limited riders must have earned less than $10,000. Intermediate less than $50,000 and the Open class is for anyone. The Open classes are all run concurrently, so I cross-entered and only had to run one p
attern to score in two categories.
attern to score in two categories. 
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