The first thing I saw when I got out of my car on Thursday was this hanging off a truck:
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| Klassy |
The Ohio Expo Center was packed full with vendors and horses. Initially it took quite a while to find my way around and I'm pretty sure I missed about a quarter of what was there. I never did find the No Thrush booth but I did find Ansur and spoke to Carole about what my next saddle will be (an Elite with tooled leather panels... drool).
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| Check out their fancy signage |
I saw oodles of friesians, quarter horses, hafflingers, and cobs- excuse me- gypsy vanners, everywhere. Every once in a while you'd see a rare breed like a nokota or a blinged out saddlebred. But most of what I saw were horses with lots and lots of hair.
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| Bling action |
The only thing that put a bit of a damper on the experience were the individual horse owners walking around without a clue. Helmets seemed to be NOT COOL as only about three people were wearing one. One out of every five horses I saw going around was LAME. And many riders, like the lady in the photo below, seemed to lack even a speck of common courtesy for those around them.
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| Reading comprehension fail |
Overall, though, I had a really good time. I stocked up on supplies (hay bags, new leathers, fly masks, fly whisk, new reins, salt block for Gwen) and took a lot of clinic notes. I'll expand on those in my next post...
It's usually the Arab riders that make my blood boil. I love the chance to see some of the rarer breeds, this year at our horse fair I got to see a Suffolk Punch up close and personal. First time I've ever seen one in real life, so it was kinda cool.
ReplyDeleteGlad you had a good time.
P.S., the balls on the trucks? Yeah, still quite popular in the Midwest. You know what those things are the best for? Letting you know which men to avoid.
There weren't many arabs there at all, which was a bummer since I love them.
DeleteGood comment about the truck balls. That's self selection at it's finest- way to turn off all the nice girls, guys!
I wonder what the truck scrotum packers would think of some (anatomically correct) female genitalia dangling from a hitch?
DeleteJust sayin'... ;)
I would buy one of those...
DeleteLol, I have thought the same thing!
DeleteMy mother teaches jewelry/metalworking classes and one of her students used to make wax impressions of her *ahem* lady region and then cast them in silver and adorn them with jewels. It was all for shock value, of course. Whenever I see those truck balls, which unfortunately have been popular here in Miami ForEVER, I think, "I should buy one of Simone's va-jay-jay sculptures and put it on the back of my car!" Would NEVER actually do it, of course, but it would be pretty funny.
Glad you're back and got to see a bunch of different breeds. I love the gypsy vanners and really want one until I come to my senses and remember all the mud + feathers = no. Can't wait to hear about the clinics.
ReplyDeleteI've got to say I've been to more horse shows than I care to remember and there was always someone who I wanted to drag off a horse. Anyway, I've never seen the truck balls but it is a good advertisement of who to steer clear of.
Isn't that a bummer? Always one to ruin every party.
DeleteAnd I agree with you, all that hair is too high maintenance for me. I don't brush MY hair that much.
I've seen the truck balls around here, too. Yuck! It's amazing that there were so many lame horses and bad riders. :/ That had to be difficult to watch. I'm looking forward to the clinic notes though!! I love clinics.
ReplyDeleteYeah, one of them was riding in one of Mark Rashid's clinic too. Fortunately he put an end to that.
DeleteYikes! Those balls were a foreshadowing weren't they? I do look forward to your clinic notes, as I am sitting here stalking your past 'bar' posts.
ReplyDeleteFortunately things got better from there.
DeleteOh, I should add that I would change my bars posts slightly if I wrote them again today. Bars are composed the same as the hoof wall, they have an outer wall, inner wall and white line just like the hoof wall. Really the bar is the wall just curved around the back of the hoof. Also, Gwen doesn't have bar over sole, she just has funky pigmentation back there.
DeleteThe balls on the truck are gross. . .I've seen them here. I enjoyed myself there, but there was a lot of stupid people. You are right, helmets were rare.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to you clinic notes!
I looked for you, I don't know what you look like but I looked for you anyway.
DeleteI think we all missed you! Yeah, I saw my first pair of truck nuts not too long ago. Took me an amazingly long time to figure out what the heck they were.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I wasn't watching the same riders you were--I hate watching stuff like that. My horsetainment this weekend consisted of hauling my five-year-old lovelies to the dentist--always stressful (that powdered molar smell does tend to stick with you) but it's nice to know they won't have to live with a mouth full of points.
Funny you should mention that, I watched a lecture on dentistry while I was there. Learned some new stuff too, fortunately didn't have to smell burnt teeth at the same time though ;)
DeleteI hate those truck things. My boys have asked what they were suppose to be and I just say I don't know. So incredibly lacking dignity and class. I wish people would bother to care about little kids seeing these things. Especially bumper stickers that say things like "I like lipstick on my dip stick." Try explaining that to a 7 year old!
ReplyDeleteEeeww! I can't imagine putting a bumper sticker like that on my car. I second that they lack dignity and class.
DeleteHello smazourek! My first time on your blog. I haven't seen truck balls in years. My first thought was "there goes someone who would have collected indians scalpes in the wild west days". Absolutely disgusting.
ReplyDelete