September 28th - 2:30pm

Day two of horse showing at the Buenos Aires. Today was the series show so we took the six that are still doing the series back for their classes. Since I proved Im decently mobile even if Im not able to ride I was able to go in place of one of the grooms. So Meg stayed home to help Rodrigo and ride while Alice, Martin and I went horse showing! As Ive said before, shows in Argentina are quite different than those Ive been to in the US. Show days here generally arent my absolute favorite days like they are in the US either. Not due to any fault of the shows but its very little riding on my part and a lot of watching fantastic riders make riding young horses over big jumps look effortless. Definitely leaves me with a lot to think about/work on riding wise. And a strong desire to smack my head against something (in a very cartoon like way) that I still cant pull off that effortless look despite all the training Ive had. Heck, Id even pass up the looking effortless to just be able to get it done like these guys can. They almost never miss at jump and many have positions between/over fences that even my Eq/hunter trainer back home would have trouble faulting. All on young horses. The series 1 horses are just now turning 5 and going 1-1.05m. The series 2 has climbed up to 1.10-1.20 with the 6 yr olds. And the series 3 will cap out at 1.35m with the 7 yr olds this spring (spring here was Sept 22nd). Someday Ill be able to ride like that. Just have to keep working.
The show was good though. Horses did well and Martin was happy with them. The music that was played was interesting as well. Everything from Argentine club music to Footloose to old Britany Spears songs. I love the bizare mix. Definitely something Ill miss in the states. And as always there were horses everywhere. And tied to everything. The CHBA is the smallest of the three clubs in town but there were just as many horses as usual. We ended up split between two spots because there was no way to get six horses in together anywhere. One barn (at least) even had to tie up across the road in tge park. I had a moment and took pictures of some of the craziness. Its so different from the US. For the most part it works though. The only time I was really wary and as a result somewhat annoyed was when someone tied a very up stallion to a post right in the middle of everything. You had to go between it and a fence to get to the ring. He was interested in every horse that came near. Especially the mares. And the chain over his nose (not even a horse lead shank; a legit chain) just barely kept him contained. And he kicked.  I think I was the only one bothered though (likely cause Im still not moving so quickly) because that is a very typical thing here. Everyone here has just learned to work around it. Horses included. One more thing Im getting use to here!

Photos 1-4: Inside of the club with all the horses. Part of our set up is in photo four. One of our stallions is the horse totally asleep on the left in the coffee sack blanket. Most stallions here are about like him. The exact same temperment as the gelding next to him. Some of the stallions though...
Photos 5-6: The warm up and show ring
Photo 7: I took this photo from just behind the ringside bleachers. So the ring was just behind me. The longing ring is in the middle/right of the photos. The bay in blue sheet on the left is the one you had to kind of duck past at times. The warmup ring is probably 15-20ft to the left of him. The other horse was a stud too. Just quieter. Then the tractor was directly behind both of them.
Photo 8: One of the grooms with the type of hat that is quite popular here
Photo 9: Another groom creatively keeping up with a helmet by putting it over his hat. It looked hilarious from the front
Photo 10: The only other girl I see consistently at shows. She has some series horses.
Photo 11-12: Very unique looking building next to the CHBA. The bay with the blaze is our Cylene
Photo 13: Sweet horse that looked like one from home (Splendid)
Photo 14: Boot zippers fixed with bright blue duct tape about two minutes (if that) before a round
Photo 15: The guy in the blue is one of mt all time favorite riders here. He won the FEI Grand Prix and 1.40 jumper derby earlier this year (on two different horses) and was amazing to watch ride.
Photo 16-17: The ever intrepid Mono in action!
Photo 18: This guy has a very awesome military jacket. Hes at a lot of the shows and is the first person Ive ever seen to ride in uniform. Very cool.
Photo 19-20: All the loading and unloading is done on the side of the road at this club. Trailers are parallel parked as best as possible and you go from there. You load/unload with moving traffic on one side and a sideway with pedestrians on the othere. As a result, youre walking horses up and down the sidewalk in the middle of the city to get from the club to trailer. A very interesting feeling. And as always, the horses are unphased.
So despite everything, its been a good day. And plenty of pictures I think! Probably took at least 50 but these are the most interesting (I think) twenty.