My sister was very excited to be called up to the ring for the presentation of awards for the Children’s Pony Hunters. She had heard that the champions would be awarded coolers, and she had not won one before, so she was beside herself. Up she goes with her lazy fat pony, who wanted no part of the prize-giving. In comes the awards team, all smiling. And in comes… a wheeled tailgate cooler filled with cold drinks. She did her very best to smile for the presentation in the ring, but lost it and bawled when she realized she had not won the type of cooler she thought she was getting. Imagine all that excitement and such a letdown! But it was a fantastic prize- a 72" cooler would not have done her a lick of good in her life (see next story…) but that Igloo came to every horse show for years after that.
That’s a good idea.
My horse wears a 78. So far he has won an 80, an 82, and an 84 in scrims, Irish Knits, and wool dress sheets. The 80 scrim was fine over tack. The 82 Irish Knit shrunk, so that worked out fine too. I put the dress sheet on him and he looked like he was playing dress up in father’s clothes. His “little brother” (my sister’s junior hunter) was actually an 84, so when that horse won a 78" dress sheet, my sister and I just traded.
The joke about the 84 was that it was from a benefit show held at our farm. The prize donor had ordered many 84s, a couple of 72s for the pony divisions, and one lone 78. The barn manager and I worked together to gather all the prizes and allocate them to each class. I told the barn manager deadpan that I intended to win the class I did end up winning, and so we needed to allocate the 78 to that class. She laughed and said “yeah, sure, whatever” and we did put the 78 aside for that class, but there was a mixup on the day and it had already been given to the winner of another division. So 84 it was!
And yet… and yet… when I travel down to Phoenix/Scottsdale and show, this actually would be a welcomed award.
