Oh, the Equine Affaire… a glorious excuse for horse people all over New England to take time off of work, spend too much money, and sneer at other horse people who certainly cannot be nearly as knowledgeable/talented/dedicated as you.

This year was a little different for me b/c I went with Lisa, instead of hooking up with Beth and the Keene gang. Despite the rain we had a good time, although the mystique of the event is wearing off for me. I know too much what to expect, I suppose. There’s the buildings full of vendors selling everything there is horse – from the latest vitamin supplement sure to cure all your equine’s ailments to manure forks guaranteed to cut your barn chore time in half. There are the clinics – trainers from all over who all think they have the magic answer. And then there’s my personal favorite, a parade of horse trailers (as I told Lisa, this section is my “crack”) that are all too expensive and out of reach but yet I always wander through, smelling the “new trailer smell” and visioning me and Sky camping and showing and going to clinics in.

There was one trailer (see the photos) that I loved. Lisa and I thought it was great, but of course my husband was unimpressed considering he doesn’t understand that the only other one-horse alternatives are flimsy European jobs… I love this trailer – it’s SO CUTE. I loved that it had a dressing room and was so slim and cute…. I could totally see Sky self-loading on it and me setting up my bed in the back on camping trips (don’t laugh, it can be done!). My only beef about it is that it’s $8500!! Now, here’s my philosophy on this. If the four-horse is twice as much as the two-horse, then why isn’t the one-horse half the price of the two-horse! I think it’s only logical, don’t you?

Lisa was more interested in shopping than the clinics, which was fine with me considering there wasn’t anything I was dying to see that day. I bought Sky a winter blanket and myself a new vest. I got a Paint decal for the Explorer, which I am waiting to see how long it takes until Karl notices its presence (he won’t be happy about it).

We bumped into a lot of people we knew - Beth and her daughter, John and Lisa Toli, Marty from East Corinth – and of course lots of people Lisa knew and I think I may have met before. There seems to be a lot of drama surrounding the upcoming election for NHQHA which I’m a little glad I’m not involved in (sorry to those of you who are).

It wasn’t as crowded as I remember it being, which is good b/c after an hour or two pushing and shoving in a crowd of people, I am not as pleasant as I am normally. Lisa got tired pretty quickly, which I can understand, so we cut out around three.