Just back from a live model horse show, my first in more than 13 years, and easily the one with the best name ever.
Although it’s been a long time since I’ve been active in the model horse world, and especially in showing, I still get so many questions about it, not least from the lovely close friends I’ve made in adulthood who know me well, accept all my quirks, and yet somehow have still been WTF-ed by watching me dive back into this hobby!
Thought it might be fun to take you with me and show you what this gorgeous, mad and very fulfilling hobby looks like from the outside and the inside!
So far, so mad – is it fun?
It is SO much fun – the prep, the arrival, meeting new friends & catching up with old ones, seeing other people’s collections, eyeing up models you’ve wanted for years, the sales table at lunchtime, the raffle – all of it is such a joy and I am actually not quite sure why I stopped, or why it’s taken me so long to return.
I did some shadow judging at this show as I felt wildly out of practice but it turns out the knowledge is still there and just needed some polishing.
Here’s a little peek into what my show was like – please excuse shocking photo quality, my phone is ancient, it was very hot, and my focus was very much on being present offline, so all pics are a bit random!
Prepping in the week before by figuring out 1) what the hell horses I even had photos and show records for, and 2) which ones were going into which class so I didn’t take my entire collection with me:
Packing my herd to fit in the car:
Arrival & setup
Some classes in action:
Personal highlights included this glorious underwater pony scene entry – I love it when my extremely niche interests collide – and my sleepy shire Snoozaroo finding some matching friends!
I won a unicorn in the raffle, who is obviously destined for photoshoots:
A tiny selection of other people’s gorgeous horses:
Got to judge the championship, which was hard but fun, and look at the teeny tiny rosettes alongside the big ones!! And here are a couple of my two which placed during the day, although I’m never that fussed as long as I have fun on the day. Which I very much did!
Already can’t wait for next year, and plotting some cataloguing and naming time, and some new photos of my herd now they’re all dusted. Just got to fit them all back into the cabinet now…
