Thinking in vain...

Not much to say about the Horse Show. It was a horse show. Lots of prancing and all that fun stuff.

However there was the Stadium Nazi as we walked in. She was serious about her job. She checked our tickets every time we came back in and watched so that we sat in the right seat. We finally started going to the entrance directly to our right where no one cared.

The Grand Prix was exciting which is what we come for really. My older sister used to jump and we used to live on a horse farm so we take my mother every year. Every year I ask the same questions as I was four when we moved and I remember nothing from year to year.

I won't bore you, but only 5 runs had 0 faults... and they had a jump off even though they really didn't need to. But jump offs make the evening much more exciting.

I did learn one new thing, and excuse me if I use any "wrong" terminology. Since our Grand Prix takes place inside, the course ends up being very much like European courses. American courses are usually quite spacious with lots of room for the horse and rider to make the turns and the jumps. European courses are completely different - they are smaller with sharp turns and close jumps. So it was the announcer's opinion that if every course was like ours, Americans would be more prepared for world championships.

So the guy to watch was an Argentinian named Palo Muente riding a horse named As Di Villagana. And he really was quite awesome - his horse sailed over the jumps and he smoked everyone elses time in the first round. In the jump off he went first, got 47.626 seconds in a 59 second course with no faults. Needless to say everyone tried to stay in line with his time - but with 4 - 8 faults each an higher times, they couldn't compete.

Jump off video below.