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I spent Saturday at Dressage at Devon, which is a fairly sizeable horse function out near Philly. It's high-end, so nothing for sale was particularly within my means. The lattes were four and a half bucks. I packed a lunch so that I would not have to buy expensive food. Turnpike tolls were twenty-odd dollars (there and back), parking was ten bucks for the day, the ticket itself was twelve bucks. So, I'm out fifty dollars just to get my ass in a seat at the show. Economy, you better be feeling all sorts of stimulated.



The show on Saturday was mostly Intermediare 1 Test 4, which ran from when we got there well into the afternoon. Intermediare has canter pirouettes but not very good ones. :) In the day's classes, we got to see the following things: horses who bucked (more than one horse), a horse who was about to explode and whose rider cut the ride short and excused herself before the explosion, a horse for whom we were not to clap as applause startled it excessively, a Lusitano stud whose neck was so cresty that it flopped over side-to-side, a pinto spotted horse (most dressage horses at higher levels are solid-colored), and lots and lots of very competent lateral work. The lateral work was nice.

There were frequent intermission things with light entertainment such as drill team presentations and a horse dragging a girl on skis across the arena sand and a different horse kicking (both barrels, ass in the air) a very large beach ball as some sort of trick. Also, in keeping with Horse Event Tradition and the *very* best sort of cringe-inducing patriotism, we were treated to Lee Greenwood's song while flag-bearing riders cantered around the arena. (Any sort of horse function that is more *entertainment* than *horse show* will include flag-bearing riders on horses cantering around the arena to God Bless the USA. It's inevitable.) Also, because the horses are high-end animals, they drug the arena after every five or six riders to ensure perfectly soft, fluffy footing for everybody. I felt that this was an excessive amount of arena dragging. La felt that the drag tractor's tilt steering wheel (smallish John Deere tractor with enclosed bug-eye cab) was excessive.

One thing I didn't expect was the amount of stupid in the horses. These are high-dollar horses. I walked around the stable area, where were posted advertisements selling horses. (This is a feature of horse shows. It is an *educational* feature.) The low-end horses listed for sale were around ten thousand dollars. An average price tag was around thirty thousand dollars. High end horses were selling for over sixty thousand dollars. For comparison, my dead horse Meatly cost me six hundred dollars. If I were to attempt to buy Nicknick, I am reasonably certain that I could convince her proper owners to sell her to me for about a grand. So, y'know, way too rich for my blood. These are horses that cost real money. These are horses with professional trainers, horses that get ridden regularly, horses that have been handled their entire lives to a degree that my crappy little backyard ponies cannot even imagine. I do not think that I am being out of line in expecting these horses to behave.

What to my wondering eyes did appear, though, was not well-behaved horses with lots of show mileage and surpassing patience. No. There were some, but the prize line-up ("Line up your horses facing the announcer's stand and wait there while we read out the list of people who won, hand out ribbons, and play the national anthem of the winner") contained rather a lot of fidgeting (not good), outright wandering around (more than a step or two), two or three rears, a pull-back (handing out the ribbon), and one horse excused from the ceremony on grounds of insanity. WTF, peeps? My horse Nicknick, who is arguably quite unlike a paragon of equine virtue, can stand still on a loose rein for that amount of time. No, she cannot do canter pirouettes. (She has never been taught them.) I guess my view is that if a horse can do canter pirouettes, it is probably also smart enough to master standing still.

Date: 2009-09-27 11:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cassandramorgan.livejournal.com
Devon is way expensive. If you let me know ahead of time...and you're driving a normal car/truck and not a horse trailer and don't mind a slight uphill walk...I can nab you some free parking. My workplace is down Route 30 a bit...right next to Devon Manor old people's home, down the hill a little from the Cumberland Farms...and no one is really there on the weekends. ^_^


Those are the types of horses that are expensive for no real reason either. The owners seem to go "I think this horse should cost this much, so it will!" instead of using any actual sales figures or anything. *shakes her head*

Date: 2009-09-28 01:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] muhon.livejournal.com
skijorring!

Date: 2009-09-28 01:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] which-chick.livejournal.com
You are *supposed* to have snow for skijoring. I felt bad for the girl doing the demo -- she was in a swimsuit. It was not swimsuit weather.

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