Equine Affaire!

This past weekend was the Equine Affaire in Springfield, Massachusetts. For anyone who doesn't know what it is, it is a 4-day horse trade show with 4 different buildings full of horse vendors. There are also tons of clinicians representing every discipline doing clinics. Jim Wofford was there for eventing this year and he was really fun to watch.

We went Saturday and stayed over to go Sunday too. Long story short I bought way too much stuff!

This is off the top of my head so I'm sure I'm forgetting something but things I bought:

• A really nice, white squishy saddle pad
• Braideez braiding wire (tried these last night and they are so cool!) - http://www.braideez.com/
• A waterproof quarter sheet to ride in the snow and rain with this winter
• Ordered a custom embroidered jacket with Ben's show name on the back
• Ordered a custom figure eight bridle from PinkEquine with neon green padding for cross country (SO EXCITED!)
• A new neon green lunge whip that is awesome!
• A plain black fly veil for the summer
• New show gloves
• A new grooming brush
• A new dressage girth from Lettia. The pins are spring loaded so you only need one hand to tighten. Used it yesterday and I love it!
• New black dressage pad. It has white and black striped piping along the edge and looks SO nice on Ben.
• Jim Wofford's "Training the Three Day Event Horse and Rider." Already started reading it and have already learned so much.
• A new black leather halter originally $105 on sale for $35. It's so nice and is going to be his new show halter.
• Himalayan salt blocks for 50% off because Ben goes through one a month...
• I earned myself a cute free pink Smartpak hat by checking in to their booth on Facebook
• A waterproof helmet cover for riding in the rain with
• New hay bags for the trailer
• Anti-static blanket spray because Ben gets so static-y and he freaks out everytime I take his blanket off, poor thing!
• I got all my wormer for the year on sale too which is great!

I am convinced that there is more but that's all I can remember for now. And for the most exciting news of all:

I won a Facebook contest to win a Point Two Air Vest for 50% off! So instead of $675 it's only going to cost about $330! Still a lot of money, but I would never be able to find a deal like that anywhere else so I am very excited. I will probably get it in a couple of weeks.

I rode Ben yesterday. It's been getting dark here earlier and earlier so by 3:30 the sun was already beginning to set and thats when Ben gets really spooky. That combined with having two days off, he wasn't the greatest but we had a decent flat school. It's a little rainy today and it's going to pour tomorrow. I don't know what I should do in terms of jumping/dressage work over the next couple of days. I will probably jump today, flat tomorrow. Then I have a dressage lesson Thursday and a jumping lesson Saturday. This month is going to be relatively quiet for us. Next month we're doing the Suzi Gornall clinic the first weekend in December, then heading out to the first jumper show of the season on the 11th. I'm really nervous for that because I have NO clue what I'm doing when it comes to the jumper thing... Better start reading the rulebook!