Expo

Saturday I went to Expo! I got up at 5:45 and arrived at Stoneybrook at 8:30 am. Those three hours right there were where I really wished I had a car- it's a 40 minute drive. Alack, alas. We got there at 10:30 and I was pleasantly surprised to see a jumping clinic going on *right* next to the Canadian stalls, so I sat and watched that for ten or fifteen minutes, since Luca was pointedly taking a nap and ignoring us. Said hi to Ken and Rosine and Michelle and Jeff (right, guess who are people and who are horses) and set to work removing all the hay from Luca's hair, of which there were considerable amounts of each. After his mane and tail were done, we vacuumed him. He was upset about this, mostly because we took his hay bag away. All through this there were people wandering by and admiring him. Chuck showed up and said hi, then wandered off to watch the Extreme Mustang Makeover and subsequent auction. Luca and Robert had a clinic at 12:30, and he wanted to be ready early, which meant we had Luca harnessed and hooked by 11:40. Robert and Luca wandered off to do their shmoozing thing with women and mares and I watched a bit of a reining clinic, then went through the barn. The Kiger mustangs were pretty cute, I'm a sucker for a grulla, and the mini donks were adorable too. I recognized one of them from the State Fair when he did cart barrel racing. I wandered through Stallion Row, and I gotta say, I was more impressed by the stallions who were in with their breeds. The only exception was this gorgeous deep, dappled buckskin, who was a Rocky Mountain Horse (I think!). No one else struck me with that "hey, look at me" attitude I think a stallion should have.

I ran into Colleen by trying to find Robert. The clinic was about "Centered Driving," with Peggy Brown, founded on Sally Swift's ideas of Centered Riding. I wasn't a big fan of it. Partially I don't deal well with all the imagery they use, and also the bits of Centered Riding that I read were virtually identical to the pieces Brown brought up. The only other participant was a woman with a goofy Fjord mare. I think Brown was a little frustrated and impressed at their skills, since both drivers were good enough that I, at least, didn't see a significant difference in their driving by her suggestions. There was one really terrible moment when Luca was standing there and Brown was explaining things, and Luca dropped. That was bad enough. Then he started smacking it against his belly and kicking at it (in Ken's words: SCHWUNG!!!). Sigh. But he didn't do anything bad, and barely looked at the Fjord. I spent a lot of this talking to a man who was struck by Luca and asked me about him. Gradually the realization dawned on him that, oh hey, I actually worked with that stallion, which was why I knew so much about Canadians.

It's pretty funny how tough it is for people to wrap their mind around the Canadian breed. Everyone said "I know he's from Canada, but what BREED is he?"

They did a cones course at the end, right when my cousin, aunt, and my cousin's grandmother came in. The latter two headed off and my cousin, a very shy teenager, stuck around for the horses. I'd mentioned that she might be there to Robert, so when Robert rolled in and I went to halter Luca, he told me to stop and asked my cousin to hop in. She was so taken aback, she actually did! They just did a short parking lot amble, because Luca was very mentally done after two hours, but I think she was pretty happy. Unharnessed, blanketed, and braided his tail, then went off with family, only to be back fortyfive minutes later to do it again.

The demo went fairly well. Luca didn't really want to have the tarp over his head, but mostly put up with it. The girl who jumped her Canadian did really tiny crossrails, so next year Robert wants me to jump Luca instead. If we'd had the time I swear we would've just unharnessed him in the arena and I would've hopped on- heck, I would've gotten on Jeff and we would've done better. He probably spent less than half an hour in the cart that time, but he was very very done with it. As soon as I blanketed him and let him go, he dropped and rolled. Of course, I was still in the stall with him, and he's not a stupid horse. He went as far away from me as he could. That meant he happened to roll directly into the wall behind him. There was a booth there with a shadowbox leaning against his stall (these stalls, incidentally, are made largely of flimsy plywood). So when he slammed into the wall, the shadowbox fell over and the glass broke. The man was pretty upset, apparently, but hopefully they'll think more next year about not putting fragile items against a HORSE STALL.

I wandered through the merchandise areas. Not enough English stuff for my tastes. I saw a basket of stirrups for $20/pair, which I thought was a decent deal. Insufficient English bits for me to look at, thankfully. I was sort of looking for a pony girth for Niki- the one I'm using now is on about the second to last hole on each side- and failed in that mission, as well as a halter because the one she has now just barely fits, too. My cousin etc. headed out, so I went back to the stirrups. I picked a pair up and only then realized something- there were crystals on one side of each stirrup. I was about to put them back when I thought two things: a) I could just put the crystals on the inside if I HAD to show in them, and b) what if there were hot pink crystals?

Yeah, I'm a bad person.

There was one pink pair left, so I got those. If we get Cari's old saddle and she takes the leathers and irons, I'll stick these on, I guess. If not, I think we're still a pair short somewhere. I ran into Robert not too long after that, and he shook his head at me goodnaturedly. Right before we headed out, I ran into Ken and showed them first to him, then to Luca. Luca snorted and turned away from me. Can't say as I blame him.

Robert drove me home down Woodstock- Gillian, Jesse, and Kola were walking on it as we happened by. Robert honked his horn. Jesse wanted to know why that old guy in the old truck was flirting with her.

Got to school at 7:15, worked for an hour, went home and collapsed.

Incidentally, last Saturday Gillian was wearing her super princess hat while I was riding Luca. We were just sitting there, so we put the hat on Luca. This is what he thinks: