The Slower Road

In today’s post, I had meant to share the story of and some photos from the booth of a Spanish harness-maker we saw at the RWHS trade fair. But I seem to have run out of time, and we’re traveling all day today, making our way back home.

So for today, I’ll leave you with a twilight photo of beautiful Windsor Castle, from my evening visit to the showgrounds on Saturday.

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I have a LOT more to share from this week’s trip. Stay tuned for photos from the harness-maker I mentioned above, the RWHS Light Trade class (this may even warrant two separate posts), tent-pegging, a rocking-horse-maker in the trade fair, a variety of pageant participants, the BDS drive, and more.

As you may have heard, there’s an extra-special addition to this year’s Royal Windsor Horse Show: a nightly pageant of music, horses, and more — “Around the World in Sixty Years” — in honor of HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the many countries she’s visited during her reign.

Half of our CAA group went to the pageant last night, and the rest of us saw tonight’s final performance. (It was a stunningly spectacular show, by the way.)

The U.S. contingent consisted of cowboys, Native Americans, roping cowgirls, the “Pony Express,” longhorn cattle, and an original Stagecoach owned (and brought from California specifically for the pageant) by CAA member Michele Macfarlane.

Yesterday evening, I was fortunate to be allowed to go (with an escort, mind you) “backstage” at the very beginning of the pageant to watch some of the U.S. contingent gathering in the huge driving warmup arena, and to see Michele’s horses being put to the Stagecoach.

Here’s a look at the portion of the massive production that I saw, in the order that it all took place:

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Today at the Royal Windsor Horse Show: the driving marathon!! … and a few other things, too, of course.

On our way out to the marathon course this morning, A.J. and I happened upon an adorable leadline class:

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Here are a few scenes from today’s marathon, featuring the obstacle that was added to the course just this year. Thecompetitors are shown in the order they drove.

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Laurie Astegiano

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Mia Allo

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Bram (son of Ysbrand) Chardon

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Jan deBoer

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Harry Verstappen

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David Matthews

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Misdee Wrigley Miller

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Barry Capstick

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Glenn Geerts

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Boyd Exell

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Koos deRonde

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George Bowman

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Ysbrand Chardon

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I took this photo (castle! clouds! blue sky!) as we were exiting the show grounds yesterday afternoon, but forgot to include it in last night’s post …

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As I mentioned in this morning’s quick post, everyone’s horse-show-viewing schedules were disrupted when a number of today’s classes, including the coaching marathon, were cancelled due to heavy, deep mud in the truck- and horse-trailer-parking area.

But we all found other things to do.

First, of course, were the dressage tests for the pair-horse class in the FEI driving competition. You can see how muddy the arena was in these photos, and don’t forget that you can read about the competition, get results, and see more photos at www.hoefnet.com.

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Misdee Wrigley Miller

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look at all the mud on Beat Schenk’s wheels!

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Then, there were all sorts of other horse-show classes:

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this Highland Pony won its class and its division and is owned by …

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… HM The Queen, who was standing by the rail and watching the class

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the exciting “skill at arms” class includes stabbing things with sabres (shown here), shooting balloons with a pistol …

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… and tent-pegging (shown here); we’ll have much more on this topic in a separate post

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Scattered throughout the schedule (with more added today when several regular classes were cancelled) were demos by some of the foreign groups scheduled to perform each night in the Jubilee Pageant, including …

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… riders from Oman …

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… Arabian horses from Azerbaijan …

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… and expert sword-wielding, um, riders from Russia

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Of course, the huge trade fair kept everyone (including us!) busy with shopping, meeting new friends, and seeing old friends. I’ll have more on that topic soon!

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And, finally, just for fun: a quick look at some of today’s horse-show mud:

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NOTE one correction in yesterday’s post: I had said the people in the final photo were from the Cook Islands. They are, in fact, from Kenya.