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…
For each week during the Winter Equestrian Festival, there is a “Saturday Night Light” class that is open to the public and hosts a big show jumping (usually) or occasional hunter class. These vary in difficulty and prize money, and every year I’ve previously visited I’ve been lucky enough to go for the $500k WEF Finale Grand Prix… which is massive and filled with the best of the best. This year I went during week 10 instead of 12, and…
The Winter Equestrian Festival is a equestrian lover’s shopping paradise. It’s also full of the 1% and many vendors cater to the 1%. Fun fact – I am not the 1%. Also fun fact, in the past two years I have only bought from the “WEF Boutique” (the souvenir store) and both of my purchases were well under $50. But hey, this year I took pictures so y’all could see some of the smanciness that I cannot afford. What would be…
When I go visit WEF, I generally creep around with my camera. Usually I talk to no one, and just walk, watch, listen and shoot. Of course there are exceptions, like the time that I took so many pictures of these two horses that their grooms heard my camera clicking, stood up, fixed their shirts and said “I’m ready for my closeup baby!” Oui. So through my stalking around the horse show, I try to pick up a few things. A…
You see it in ads all the time. “Horse is a 10+ jumper” “This one is your hack winner!” “His trot is totally a 10”. Those kinds of descriptions usually describe pretty nice horses. One of my favorite things about going to WEF and watching the hunter ring, is that you don’t really hear those phrases.. you see them. You see them everywhere, because I’ve never been to a place with more nice horses in one ring. Say you’re chillin’ at…
With this past trip to WEF, I tried to have a game plan of what I wanted to document and write about during my time there. So instead of one giant ALL THE WEF THINGS post, I have a lot of topics planned out with photos to go along. If you love hunter/jumpers or big horse shows, I hope you’re excited to hop along the WEF train with me for a little while! I know I’ve said it before, but…
You probably were hoping for a really detailed post about all the amazingness in my trip (and it was pretty amazing as always), but I’m here to disappoint. I got up at 3am central time to fly back. A cab driver tried to scam me on the ride to the airport and I had to put on my big girl pants and tell him to GFY. Both of my flights had lots of turbulence and the same screaming toddler. So I’m…
Hunter derbies make my little heart go pitter patter. I love to watch them, read about them, take pictures of them and hopefully soon… ride in one. Large or small I don’t care, I am pro derby! Even though I adore them, I know enough about derbies to be dangerous. Not totally clueless, but it’s not like I’ve campaigned in the derby ring for a season. In lieu of an “informative” post from someone who’s definitely not an expert, I…