Prepping the Awards

Today was spent working on swag bags for the Happy Trails entrants (which is why this blog entry is going up late - I have been busy!) I can't post what's in them yet because some of the people coming to the show also read my blog and I'd like it to be a surprise, but I will show you what's in them later this weekend.

After I finished with the swag bags, I pulled out the awards. It's a free show, but I still like to have real ribbons for each class. Most are recycled, but they work just fine.

 I spent some time ironing the rosettes for the champion and reserve winners.

 The hard part now will be keeping them nice and unwrinkled until the show.

 These rosettes are from real horse shows and date back to the 1990s. They looked so much better after I ironed them.

Most of the trophies are from the 1990s, too, and I got them from someone who was selling a big box of rosettes, ribbons, and trophies for an affordable price. I am hoping that this assortment will last across several shows. You don't come across a windfall like that very often!

I'm in pretty good shape for the show - I am really looking forward to Saturday!

An Unexpected Connection

I recently bought a bunch of used trophies from a friend of a friend to use for Happy Trails 2, the model horse show I am putting on next June. The gal was nice enough to tuck in a bunch of extra goodies, including rosettes she had won in the 1990s from showing her own horses. (Real, not models.)

I was admiring them and reading the backs to see what they were for, when to my surprise, one listed the judge as Scott Macdonald. That was the name of my horse, Cee's, former owner who had also gone to my high school! 

The show was in Kalamazoo, and as Cee had won championships from Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan with Scott, my guess was that this was the same guy.

Cee and me swimming in Burnett Creek in 1974. Cee was a real water lover; Scott used to jump him off the banks of the Wildcat and into the water! I also swam him quite a bit in the Wabash.

Scott and I have lost touch, but I looked him up on Facebook and he is still involved with horses. After some further emails and photos back and forth with the woman who sold me the trophies, it turned out that the Scott who sold me Cee and the one who'd judged the seller of the trophies was the same guy!

Who'd have thought that, forty-five plus years later, I would come across a connection to him in such an odd way!