Congress of the equine variety.

I have been around horses before I ever knew what a horse was. 

Exhibit A: me on a horse in my back yard before I could even walk.

In all my years around, on and with horses there has never been one time that I have even been remotely drawn to the "sport?" of Western Pleasure.  I actually know very little about it and am completely fine with that.  There is nothing about a horse that 'jogs' (sloooooooooooooow trot) with it's nose on the ground that exudes anything attractive or even natural to a horse.  The closest I have ever come to Western pleasure was a couple years ago I went to a trainers barn.  The entire experience was odd and nothing felt right about it even though the trainer tried very hard to make me think that the way he trained horses was the absolute best.  He broke horses at the age of 18months, and when I say broke I mean like the old timer BROKE.  Like if a baby horse doesn't listen the first time you pull on that big ass leverage bit in it's mouth then you take all your power and yank their face, cause then they will learn to not want to resist you.  NO seriously he said that to me.  Then since there is nothing natural to a horse to walk, trot and canter around with their nose on the ground all the time the way you fix that is you have hooks in their stalls so for a couple hours a day you tie their head up so high and leave it there.  That way they will WANT to put there head down.  He pulled out three not yet 2 year olds while I was there to show me how 'well' they were trained.  Not ONE of those babies came out of their stall without some swelling and soundness issue.  Then proceeds to tell me how all of his horses are on adequan and injections.  I left that place and never returned and though I was never drawn to WP before now I will purposely flee from it from here on out.  Now I will not go as far as to say all WP trainers are that way.  I believe there is good and bad in every equine industry.  I am just saying that was my experience and it was repulsive.

So a few weeks ago when my two friends said they were going to the All American Quarter Horse Congress  on Monday it went in one ear and out the other.  I mean go to watch the uppity WP folk all day?  Nah.  But then they told me about the shopping...hmmm ok well maybe that would be fun.  I mean I have no money to shop but one of my girl friends barn burned down a couple months ago.  No animals were harmed but the barn, everything in it and even their 4 horse trailer that was parked near it was all a complete loss.  Here are some picture of one of the days we went to help clean up the remains.

My husband, he earned the hardest worker award,

and my Macy, she won the dirties award for the day.

 My friends goal was to have all her insurance stuff done so that she had money to go replace a lot of her items.  Though I have NO interest in Congress itself the equestrian shopping available anywhere near us is so limited that I am actually really excited about going and having some girl time and shopping.  So I don't have money to spend but she has a bunch and if you can't spend your own money then the next best thing is to help a friend spend all of hers!!!