getting the blues @ Dressage at Devon!

Which is to say - I bought some stuff. Blue stuff. Oooh boy. Tho actually I only have very poor / minimal photographic evidence of said new stuff as yet, so... sorry?

this dog has the blues too

Perhaps more importantly tho - I managed to head up to Dressage at Devon for the first time ever last weekend! Made even better bc Stephanie was there working The Horse Of Course shop! Austen and I had heard from Alli, who went up the day prior, that the shop had a to-die-for selection of breeches too.

Plus. Ya know. Stephanie. So obviously we made the trek up and were not disappointed.

despite it being a dressage show, i managed to only take pictures of the Lipizzan stallions. uh, oops?

We bee-lined immediately for the tack shop, which happened to have an excellent view of the warm up rings. Mostly tho, it was all about hangin out with Stephanie and trying on alllll the clothes in her shop lol.

ready for the show ring?

Esp Austen, who played with all things gray shadbelly (plus obvi stock tie and helmet and belt) for the eventual PSG debut. For my part I picked up a vest (it was cold and rainy out!) plus a pair of breeches to be discussed more in-depth later. Oooh and some other blue things too. Like for my hands and for the horse's face. Hint.

doing the thing!

Oddly tho, it felt like we watched very little dressage haha. After exhausting the shop's resources we caught the Lipizzan demonstrations (which included some pretty nicely schooled stallions like the above, and some impressive but maybe borderline out of control stallions like the below lol), then headed off in search of food and wine (and more shopping, obvi).

white boy jumping!

Guys. Seriously tho. Idk what it was about this dressage show. Somehow it felt like WAY more of a party than literally any of the big events I've been to. Maybe bc it was Saturday night? Who knows lol. But. Well. Let's just say we had ourselves a good ol' time.

we may have been shushed by a couple DQs in the process

Tho lest you think we missed the actual competition itself (since I apparently missed taking any photos of it, oops), we caught a few rides through the Grand Prix Special test, and then all of the freestyles.

sadly none of the real horses sported red glittery hooves

Stephanie and Austen knew way more about the horses and riders in the field than I do - but that didn't make it any less enjoyable to watch. There was so much atmosphere, coupled with a little bit of a drizzle, it was really interesting to see how the horses handled it.

Or, perhaps more interestingly, it was intriguing to see how well some of these horses could still score even with some unfortunate moments in their tests.

i like this picture purely for the Charlie nose factor

Anyway tho, it was a really awesome time. I'd highly recommend both Dressage at Devon AND making time to meet up with Stephanie should either opportunity present itself to you lol. Or. Ya know. Just getting shitankered at your local dressage show. That's probably cool too ;)

all of the blue things?

More to come on the actual shopping part later, after I've had some time to mess around with my new play things. So far tho I'm pretty pleased!!

What's your favorite part of going to big shows? Is it the shopping? Or watching the competition? Or are you more into the tailgate scene?

ALSO. Don't forget your 2ptober baselines are due tomorrow!!!! It's shaping up to be an excellent contest, don't miss your chance to get in on it!