For the first time in four years, I won’t be traveling to watch the Winter Equestrian Festival this year. I’m a little sad about it. It was always a good time visiting one of my closest friends. Even above that, there’s nothing in the world like WEF. When they describe it as horsey disneyland… they aren’t joking! I often hear that people found my blog through the WEF posts, and a small, silly part of me thinks I may be…
When I go to WEF, I feel like I’m at a horse show aquarium. So I watch a lot and take a lot of pictures and learn by observation. One of the things I like to do is pick a class and see what kind of bits/hardware/tack people are using. For this trip, I chose a Low Junior Jumper classic. It was interesting, because overall I’d say that the horses at this level were super athletic, fast and scopey… but…
As a hunter girl, I have few coat options. I know if I want to be fashionable I show up with a navy coat and a white shirt. Feeling old school? Wear chocolate or charcoal. Daring and trendy? Hunter green. I don’t know much about the amazing coat fashion coming out of Europe. I don’t get to play with those coats, but my jumper friends do. What do I know about jumper coats? They are pretty, and I take pictures…
If you’re like me, you grew up thinking there was one kind of boot that belonged in the equitation (and often jumper) ring. You know what I’m talking about… the “boots with the fur” otherwise known as leather sheepskin line open front boots. Bonus points for a matching fetlock set. I still like those boots, I really do! They have their downsides though – they are hard to maintain, super expensive, and they tend to warp and not always fit…
I bet I wasn’t the only one who didn’t really know that “big eq” and the Maclay Medal Finals was a really big deal before the Horse Power TV series on Animal Planet. Since I didn’t grow up showing on any type of hunter/jumper (or any) circuit, I had no idea of the big eq world. Even when I did figure out the big eq existed, the classes weren’t usually big in NC and we don’t even have a decent 3’6″…
I am a total sucker for a colored sporthorse. That doesn’t mean I don’t love my plain bay Thoroughbred, but if it’s flashy… I adore it. Bonus points for spots. Triple bonus points for palomino. One day… one day I will have a palomino hunter, and it will be beautiful. Anyway, WEF is a sea of bays. Even a chestnut or a gray stands out among the grays, but I did find some color few and far in-between. I’m sure there’s a…
Maybe this is the case at all the big horse shows… it probably is. Remember, I show locally and my A/AA experience is just as a bystander at mostly regional A shows. Before I visited WEF, the biggest show I’d ever watched was the Duke Children’s Classic in my hometown of Raleigh, NC. At Duke there were lots of amazing horses, but I don’t remember scrim sheets. WEF has tons of amazing fashion and beautiful horses, but I swear the…
A few years ago, the helmet scene at WEF was pretty standard. A survey would have been useless because the answer would have pretty much been “GPA” across all three rings. This year? Not so much! There are more competitors on the market (I call it the Euro invasion) and the styles do seem to vary more from ring to ring than I have noticed in years past. Of course, these are all just my observations from my few days…