Equine Oscars: Fashion Awards

IT'S OSCAR SEASON (more or less). As someone who rarely watches movies and gives no shits about celebrity gossip, I can absolutely assure you that the BEST part of this time of the year is the best/worst dressed lists. I may hate dressing up, but I love all the pretty pictures. And let's be real: the bad ones are the best.

Ladies and (maybe?) Gents, today I'm bringing you this year's winners for "worst possible clothing ideas". Manufacturers, I salute you for your efforts to put forward interesting and innovative ideas. Some of those ideas are brilliant. Some are mediocre and repetitive.

Neither of those things are included on this list.

This list is for the things so unique and so bad that I cannot even comprehend why anyone ever thought they were a good idea, much less slapped a label on them and then thought that a same human being would buy them.

Without further ado, let's look at the worst of the worst of equestrian fashion!

From the bottom up:

BOOTS

Boots are hardly a fashion statement when equestrian life includes sclepping large amounts of real and metaphorical shit through mud, dust, and sand, right? Boots are needed. Boots are life. Is it even possible to screw boots up?

Dublin answered that question with a resounding YES. Meet the horrific plastic shiney red non-space boots that people were somehow supposed to ride in. I mean, if your skin didn't break out in hives just looking at them, think about the total lack of breathability. And your feet. And anerobic bacteria. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the first boots that it's possible to get a venereal disease from without even doing anything weird.

No wonder these were only ever made once and never re-released. Special edition my ass.

Speaking of asses, let's talk BREECHES!! 

Breeches are important. There is no denying that riding is a leg sport and what we put over our legs is critically important. Modern technology (and elastic!) have completely revolutionized the riding-pants market. But hey. There's lots of asses and lots of ideas and is it even possible to make one idea any more universally wrong than those gross old mushroom pants? (You know what I'm talking about.)

YES Romfh says. YES. This thing is so wrong that it can never be right! We can debate all day whether plaid is slimming (it's not) or whether it looks good on curvy girls (it doesn't) or whether they should wear it anyways (ehhhhhh no thanks), but one thing we can all universally agree on: no one needs baroque wallpaper on their ass. Ever. They didn't even do that in the baroque period and those guys thought this shit up in the first place.

Ew.

Let's just go straight to SHIRTS.

But wait!! Patterned shirts are much less revealing (in bad ways) and much more cute! Who can hate on patterned shirts?! (Well, I can. But they're not the worst.)

No. Shirts have evolved a lot in the past years. We have tech material (super cool), venting (amazing), stretchy stuff (love), and all kinds of fashion knowledge to put to use. I mean, WAL MART makes tech shirts now. If they can do it, how can a much cooler company screw it up?

So, so badly. I'm not familiar with Cavalleria Toscana, and at this point, I don't want to be. Whether you call this a "generous maternity shirt for ocoto-mom", a "reverse dickie", or just plain "in poor taste" (or whether you string all those together and create a new genre), you've pretty well got it nailed. There is no part of this that is not a terrible idea, which is why I have to use a double negative to describe it.

But SB, you're saying, no one sees our shirts! We have STOCK TIES!!

Dun dun dun!

Yes we do.

We can argue all day about the pros and cons of stock ties in a supposedly-athletic endeavor. I mean, I buy the part about tourniquets out hunting, but that presupposes 1) you are not in an arena on a show grounds with an ambulance (where else do you personally wear a stock tie?) and 2) OH YEAH THAT YOU AREN'T A LAZY BASTARD WITH A PRE-TIED MODEL.

Which you are.

Yup. Clocking in at nearly $50+shipping, this beauty screams "I'M AN ATHLETE NOT A SLAVE-OWNING VICTORIAN RACIST". Wait no. I got that backwards. Plantation owners, rejoice! Your ruffly poor taste is now enshrined in modern dressage. As a statement. Of god knows what. Egads.

I mean really! All athletes need these. o.0

But for real. Athletes need helmets and who can hate on HELMETS?

I mean. As a modern equestrian who likes my non-vegetative state, I am absolutely 100% in favor of helmets. I may think it's a bit ridiculous to shell out for $900 Antares/Samshield custom job, but people spend money on all kinds of shit I don't have, and bully for them. Right?

But then I saw this monstrosity:

Not only does this chrome dome clock in at $708 American dollars BEFORE shipping from overseas (oh yes), it's also made by KEP, of 900facebookpony fame. You remember that whole saga? Haha! If you buy expensive helmets, you should: KEP basically manufactures high-priced low-tech head-grenades, in that their helmets fall apart with precious little provocation and actually don't protect your precious grey matter from anything. Not impacts. Not dust. You would literally be better off bare headed.

Damn son.

Damn.

These aren't just items with a worse-than-average shelf appeal. Each one of these is specially-crafted to a level of horrible-ness that I'm not sure I wanted to know existed.

What do you think? Did I miss something? Include your favorite item? There's always more than one worst dressed list to go around!!

4 Guidelines to Survive Any Clinic

2nd legit cross over pic!!

In lieu of a detailed write up of dressage minutiae that would bore most of you to tears (BUT MAKES ME REALLY EXCITED), let's talk about my four biggest takeaways from the clinic we did this weekend. You can read this even if you are bored to tears by watching, doing, or thinking about dressage.

I'm 2% too classy to show a picture of this.

1) Keep repeating "this will prepare us to show". Even if you have to do it through clenched teeth. Over and over and over. 

And over.

Because yes. Sometimes the person who rides after you will start warming up in the same tiny indoor as you and make really questionable choices. Like. You know. Cantering around on their semi-broke horse, not holding the reins, waving their arms over their head, and trying to crash into you while your horse is going "WHAT THE ACTUAL F***" and trying not to die.

And I wish I was kidding.

I was THISCLOSE to my first real dressage queen meltdown.

about as comfortable as it looks

2) There are parts of your body you do not know about.

You do not, in fact, have muscles there.

This will hurt.

Try to think of the pain as a good thing.

redheadlins tries to keep me from dying

3) You will regret flipping off the clinician. 

Maybe.

Actually, I really can't give you accurate information on this one, because when I really wanted to flip her off, my body was in contorted agony and I couldn't rub enough brain cells together to also lift my middle finger while riding like a frog on a fish making cake with dry clay. Also frosting. It made sense in context, ok?

pretty much like this

4) SHOWTUNES

This was the best. The clinician was trying to explain leg yields and literally broadway danced for us on foot in the middle of the arena. I about fell off laughing, but HOT DAMN we got that crossover step.

And maybe jazz hands too! (Kidding! No jazz hands were harmed in the making of this clinic wrap up.)

possible new profile pic

I have more homework than I can wrap my brain around right now, which is exactly what I want as we slide into winter and indoors and darkness and ALL THE PRACTICE TIME.

You guys. I can't even pretend I'm sad about winter. Courage is turning into a real dressage horse and it is so much fun!

Awesome Things Blog Hop

I was going to call this post "Awesome things to do with your OTTB". Well, actually, I was going to count the number of awesome things I had done and then turn it into one of those god-awful annoying listicle things, but who doesn't hate those? No one. They are universally hated clickbait and I will avoid participating this time.

Instead, I'm calling it the Awesome Things Blog Hop, because putting these pictures together made me really happy and I'd like to see other people do it. (Also I suck at blog hops, so please feel free to share your participation in the comments at any point and I'll check it out!)

Without further ado.

Here are the awesome things Courage and I do together.

take selfies

have a nap

give pony rides

do dressage

take lessons

go to shows

challenge ourselves

win prizes

win ribbons

ride western

meet friends

text

have coffee

make faces

play with dogs

celebrate sportsball

rise to challenges

make art

live dangerously

build confidence

watch sunsets

work hard

laugh

Training and competing is certainly good, but there's so much more to life and horsemanship than the endless show/clinic cycle. There are fun things and sad things and things we can do for free. So hey. If you have a giant, fragile, eating, pooping mammal on the payroll, you might as well have as much fun as you can stuff into any given 24 hour period. Enjoy!

5 Things that Make January Go By Faster

1) my horse looking dramatic in jump tack

I'm having trouble writing solid content because all I want to do is whine about how much I hate this time of year. Even with the indoor, it's cold and dark and we never see the sun (yay freezing fog ALL THE TIME) and just say no to winter, folks.

So instead, I'm sharing five pictures that make me happy right now.

2) riding around with no reins on said dramatic day

3) the faces he makes when I'm not feeding him

4) Micaylah coming over to make bridle charms

5) screwing around with making fabric bonnets. that sparkle.

 So yeah, not exactly riveting. I'm mean, I'm so crazy go nuts on winter that I literally set up a craft night and went to the fabric store all of my own volition. AND I'm actually crazy excited about my fabric bonnet and enjoying whacking out a prototype and making patterns and figuring out the fit.

ME. I DON'T CRAFT.

Until now. You win again, January.

Three Things That are Awesome

Music choices ftw

1) I have a new car. HELLOOOOOO 2014! I'm super psyched about the warranty and the air conditioning and the space and the gas mileage, but yeah, built in Bluetooth ftw. How cool is that?

I'm less enthused about car payments, but I think that will actually balance out the sheer amount of money that the old one was costing me in repairs.

Note: original image. Good thing I'm wearing pants.

2) Remember how I said Jess is awesome? Well here's even more proof. Not only do I now have a fancy bridle and martingale, but she got me Jimmy Wofford's fancy new gymnastics book that I have been wanting SO.BAD.

PROOF

THEN TOOK IT TO ROLEX AND GOT IT SIGNED.

Because yeah, she's badass.

So excited to start going through this and using the exercises. Maybe it will have to live in my fancy new car?

Fancy with sparkles

3) No time to ride Tuesday due to work/life commitments, so Redheadlins took a turn on C-rage and made him look like this.

Bar is officially raised.














So here's to awesome friends! Anyone want to ride around in my car? It's super exciting for like the next two days before it gets dirty!

Top 6 Reasons to Have a Riding Buddy

Redheadlins and I ride together a lot. Here's a list of my 6 favorite things about having a riding buddy.

Yeah, check us out

1. Instant feedback. She's a much better rider than I am, but she doesn't look down on me. Instead she always yells at me to "canter on" and I nearly fall off my horse laughing when she eats Diva's mane over an 18" jump. Noted: she has stopped doing that this year. She needs a new flaw or I'm going to start feeling inadequate.

Diva did it first

2. Peer pressure. Diva and Courage are in pretty similar places in their training. As such, we're constantly having a friendly competition. "Oh, well Diva jumped the bigger jump so now I have to." Obviously, this could be taken too far, but we both want thet best for the hoses, so it just seves to keep us motivated.

Hellz yeah we can jump barrels

3. Course setting. On Sunday, I had some extra time and so I set up a whole new course with inviting little jumps and flowing turns. On Monday, she had some extra time, so she jacked all the jumps up and added a shit ton of fill.

S.C.A.R.Y.

But we did it because Diva did and we all know that Courage is the best at jumping. I swear he's competing with Diva anyways.

Like our second attempt at a gate

4. Extra Bravery. I am hesitant to tackle big, scary issues on my own because I always want to set my horse up for a good experience. Having another set of eyes and a more experienced rider around gives me the courage (ha!) to address things I probably wouldn't otherwise for fear of screwing up my horse.

Because yeah, my face

5. Laughter. This is the first time we did the gate. He started to jump it normally and then was all "OH SHIT WHAT IS THAT MADNESS?" and took a flying deer leap. When she could finally stop laughing, we figured out a new plan and readdressed it.

But I never would have tried that on my own.

New profile pic. Yeah.

6. ALL THE PICTURES. I straight up love pony pictures, so I really don't think I ought to explain much beyond this. For those doubters who are all like "private lives are private", I'll just add that nothing helps me improve quite as much as the ability to look over the highlights of the day and then make adjustments for my next ride.

In the age of technology, this is so easy. We used to trade off phones for pictures, but it's so hard to catch the right moment, plus her camera is better than mine. Now we just take video on her phone and then grab video stills.

This particular round is pretty amazing, but the less amazing ones help us too.

Those are just the top six reasons for having a riding buddy, and I haven't even touched on the shared stories and instant sympathy and mad cooking skills. (Noted: never compromise on these. You have to do something when it's too cold to ride.)