get your autographs now! ;-)

Ah, another year of Horse Expo has come and gone.

Actually, it seemed different in lots of ways. Less stuff, less crowded, fewer horses. JC and I watched a bit of the horse auction and prices seemed pretty low for some pretty high caliber horses. Saw some other things that bring the phrase "buyer beware" to mind. Yikes! And I really hate to see a 2 year old horse under saddle. I know there are some big differences of opinion on that, but I think that's too young, and there were sure a lot of 2 year olds fully trained under saddle up for sale.

We hit the art show first thing, and I was disappointed to see that I hadn't placed. "Thankful" had won first in its class and People's Choice at Draft Horse Classic last fall, so I'd sort of thought it might at least place. C'est la vie. Over-all, the art show pieces didn't impress me too much, with a few exceptions, and is often the case I had to scratch my head over some of the judging choices.

We shopped and ate WAY too much sugar all day, and watched some breed demos and one training clinic. I really enjoy watching the clinicians there, I think it would be kinda fun to do a whole weekend thing and see a lot of more that, and it's always interesting to see that everyone is pretty much doing the same type of training, just going about it in slightly different motions and explaining it in slightly different ways. (Ah, a topic for another day). ;-)

Anyway, about a bazillion calories later (don't ask, some things just become tradition) we waddled back through the art building and I did a double take, no, maybe even a triple take, and uttered the words "Hot Diggity!" (Yes, I'm a dork) because there was an enormous ribbon hanging by my drawing! OMG!!! People's Choice! Despite not even placing!!!! Woo hoo!!! Thank you general public for recognizing good artwork. And I didn't even have to bribe anyone to vote for it. Heck, I didn't even vote, only because I never saw any place TO vote! Hot diggity indeed.