I'm off to a horse show this weekend. Not a real horse show, a plastic one. This is what one calls a "live" show, which seems to make no sense since the horses are not alive, but all it means is that we pack up our showstrings and go in person instead of sending photographs. It's not as much work as a real horse show, but it's still kind of exhausting. But fun.
Lemmonade Live is right up the road in Magnolia, so at least I don't need a hotel room and won't have a lot of travel bother. I'm totally not prepared. I'm still setting up my entry lists.
Hilariously, here is my first ever live show: Rocky Mountain Hi Live 1989 in Colorado Springs. We've come a long way, baby. I wish I had more pictures, but that's how it went down in the years before digital cameras.
If you want to see what a "live" model horse show looks like, here are some pictures from Silver Spur Live 2012 (Lake Charles, Louisiana. Yes, we travel for these things). The tables are "show rings". Don't laugh. Also, I'm sure passersby were wondering what the heck the marquee meant.
It's making me feel old. It shouldn't since I buy most of my horses secondhand and it's not as though I'm their original owner, but a significant portion of my showstring is twenty or more years old. Not that I've been showing them that long, just that the models themselves are that old. The oldest so far is Talonega, the #176 buckskin Indian pony, who is forty-two:
I'm not even forty-two! (Also, holy moley, is she beautiful. It took me decades to find one of these I could afford.)
I'm totally wearing the Simplicity 4727 bedsheet dress and the red boots. I've noticed, though, that big pockets are handy at horse shows, to carry pens, explanation cards, show tags, small models, everything. I think a horse show apron is in order. It doesn't have to be a bib apron since model horse shows are considerably cleaner than real horse shows, but it needs beaucoup pockets.
I looked all over for a yellow--I don't know why yellow, just that I had a butter yellow Western print in my head and couldn't get over it--cowboy print. GRS had a cowboy print that was exactly what I wanted (so close, in fact, that I probably got the idea from having seen it there before) but in dark green, or they had butter yellow bandana paisley, but not both. I waffled for a day and then went with yellow paisley; the green was just too dark.
We're going with a plain gathered-rectangle half-apron (a bit longer than this one):
. . . but borrowing the strip-o-pockets idea from Pattern Bureau 2239 (1955 postmark):
Trimmed in dark brown rick-rack, of course. Probably two lines along the bottom of the apron and one across the top of the pockets. I might add a pen loop or pocket, too (a narrow one).
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