Back from Congress - Part 1 - the horses

I've had quite the break from this blog! I've just been super lazy these past few days. I spend so much time on the computer at work all day that I don't always feel like doing much stuff online when I get home.  I've been anxious to get back to posting though, so here is part 1 of my  trip to Congress.

The short version of the story: It was awesome and hope I can go back next year!

Pretty medals!

For the long version: read on!

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I made it back from my big trip to the AQHA Congress a few days ago.  I had a great time and was really amazed/impressed by the scale of the whole event.  There were trucks, trailers and RVs for miles, parked all over the fairgrounds.  There were horses and people and hundreds of golf carts all over the place.  The shopping was awesome and the horses were amazing, for the most part.

A jacket from Connie's Customs

We watched several classes, including youth showmanship, hunter under saddle, futurities, novice amateur western classes and many others.  I had fun watching the horses and checking out the blinged out outfits the women wear in the western pleasure classes. They are like evening gowns with chaps!  The prices on the really fancy show jackets are outrageous – you would have to spend a minimum of $1000.00 to get started and we saw ones for sale that were over $4000.00!!!!  Luckily I will never need one of those outfits, since I find them a bit too much for my taste!

I have to admit that I’m still not a huge fan of western pleasure. The lope is still kind of nasty on a lot of horses. I think it has improved a lot over the past few years, but still not my favourite. I enjoyed the HUS classes – the horses move out much better - and I was even getting ok at picking the top 3-5 horses in each split and even in the finals. 

Proof that I actually watched some classes!  ;-)

The auction was the big event on the Sunday - which was ok, since we needed a  bit of a break from shopping!  We had all reviewed the sales catalogue ahead of time and maybe a few fantasy picks.

We toured the sales barn ahead of time to see our picks in person.  I had my eye on a nice yearling gelding out of Lazy Loper, a super popular stud (here is a link to a youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DndgYsEh7KE) and he went for $5500, which isn’t unreasonable.  Maybe someday I’ll buy my next horse down there!  

Lazy Loper - stud muffin extraordinaire!

 It was fun listening to the auctioneers and it took me a while to understand what they were saying!  They also had people at the front of the seating areas watching for bids and communicating with the auctioneer using all kinds of hand signals – which I couldn’t really figure out - but it was fun to watch.

The people I was with seemed to know half the people and horses on the grounds – we talked to people in the barns, people showing, people there shopping, people there with their trainers, etc. etc. etc.  It was a big learning experience - I met lots of new people and learned a ton about bloodlines and what judges are looking for in the big classes.   

Coming up next – shopping at Congress!