QH Congress Fun

I've spent the last two days at The All-American Quarter Horse Congress (http://www.oqha.com/congress/congresshome.htm), the largest single breed horse show in the world. I mainly go for shopping, and bonding time with my sister, who is dying to get started on the QH circuit in HUS (hunter under saddle for you non-pleasure horse types). I bought a couple of jackets, lots of vetwrap, coolers, hair (for horses) products, and polar fleece breeches. I was looking for schooling tights, but didn't find any. I realized that was because English QH riders ride in jeans, half chaps, and tennis shoes, no need for something that will fit under tall boots. My wallet probably appreciated this though.

Ironically, I found that I enjoyed watching the Western Pleasure horses more than the Hunter Under Saddle horses, mainly due to the riders. The broken wrists and elbow windows were driving me nuts. As well as the chair seats and the constant yanking on faces. I passed the time by making lists of people that jerked excessively on their horses, and then seeing how they did. About half of them placed, half didn't. I also found it easier for me to pick the winners in Western Pleasure, I think because they just have a completely different set of standards and all of them were close, it made it easy for me since I just picked the horses that had the truest gaits. HUS, I was picking horses based on which were on the forehand the least, which rarely worked. It was still a fun experience though, and anyone that has the skill/dedication/money to show and win at Congress deserves some level of respect.

I still can't wait for Equine Affaire though. Tack of the day saved me by having dressage pads the day before I went to Congress the first time, and fortunately I caved and bought some, because my hopes of picking a couple up at Congress were dashed. I found two total, and they were $80 Professional's Choice air ride pads. Not the plain jane pads I needed.