1998 World Celebration Versatility Day – Disaster Number One

World Celebration Versatility Day

Arrival and Distater Number One

I slept for 14 hours after I got home from Ava.  Since I was only there for two days and I didn’t party the night away, one would wonder just what caused the extreme exhaustion. Well, stay tuned!

Just as a note, I drove to Larry’s Stable on Thursday and went on a wonderful trail ride with my hero, Larry Dollarhide and April, their young neighbor and Larry’s apprentice.  Mona and I got to gossip and chat face-to-face instead of internet messages and I got to enjoy the pleasure of being at home in their home.  I got up early Friday and drove to Ava.  I was worried about changing into my costume after the foot race.  I had a complicated, but not elaborate costume and didn’t know how I could manage coming from the foot race class to get ready for the costume class.  I drove onto the grounds and the 1st group of people I saw were Kansas City fox trotter people.   They told me that all the events would take place at the versatility arena, so I drove back and parked right by the arena. “Fine,” I thought. ” I’ll be able to dive into my trailer and change my clothes post haste!”

I parked and made my little trailer space homey for Velvet and me.  I had to go sign up for the classes which meant that I had to walk about ½ mile…no…I’ll ride Velvet.  I put the bareback pad on her and rode to the headquarters with her halter and lead rope.  No place to park horses around the headquarters.  No post, no tree, no anything to tie a horse. AHA…trailers for sale.  It was early in the morning and no humans were stirring around the trailers.  I quickly tied Velvet to a new trailer and screamed into the building.  I had to figure out which place to sign up and find someone to wait on me.  I finally got done and zoomed out the door and rounded the corner of the building.  There was no Velvet tied to the trailer!  I knew that she had truly been there by a mound of round brown squishy things, so I wasn’t imagining that I rode her there. “She’s got loose. Where would she head?”   A quick look around showed no movements of concerned people. “I’ve been here almost an hour and lost my horse.” I ran around in a few circles…”What to do?   What to do?  Where would she go? The loud speaker system-that’s it!”   I headed back to the office intending to put a message about lost horse on the PA…and I caught sight of a worried black horse out of the corner of my eye.   “Whoops…there she was-tied to the bleachers! Guess the new trailer owner didn’t approve of used horses tied to the new trailer. Whew!” The 1st disaster averted. I got back on her and rode back to the trailer with my shiny new contestant number.