Brandon Royal Winter Fair, Day One and Two.

First of all I'm so excited I am actually at Brandon, I've always liked this show despite coming back last time with meningitis. But this time I am showing, not grooming so I get to play hunter princess!!!

The trip started early Friday morning.  How early?  My alarm went off at 3:15am, the horse trailer was leaving at 5am and my job was to get there to wrap my horse via Tim Hortons.  The most important thing that early in the morning is to get the driver their caffeine.  So much to Christine (CW) and Chris's (CB) horror, I showed up empty handed.  The Tim Hortons I went to was not 24hrs, despite being advertised as such (on their website, yes I checked!) and I didn't have time to go searching.  Since it wasn't my fault CW and CB let me off the hook.  We only made it 5 minutes down the road before we had to turn into Calgary (Shawnessy) to find a 24 hr Tim Hortons and get breakfast (and large coffee/tea and timbits for the dogs!)

We were well on the road by 5:15am, a little later than planned but I blame Tim Hortons for that!  We drove for the next 12 hours with short rest stops for us and the dogs.  Unlike the coast last year we didn't have any trailer issues, though we did drive through a snow storm or two.  We made it into balmy Brandon (0C.... wha?... the forecast was for +18C) where we unloaded the trailer and made the horses cosy.

Horses to bed and now our turn, CW, CB and myself are sharing a suite at the hotel and it turns out to be a pretty nice adjoining rooms.  Needless to say it is called "The Queen Suite".... seriously, that is the name the hotel has given it.  Appropriate for CW I'm sure!  We went to bed with plans on sleeping in (our only morning we can).

Saturday started with Bingo and Benji waking CW up at the crack of dawn to go walkies, so CW got up, walked the dogs, fed the horses and got Tim Hortons... ahhhh... Tim Hortons.  Waking up later we all slothfully made our way down to the barn area where CW and CB set up shop (so to speak) and I tacked up Chemmy and went to ride, trying to convince him he is a hunter is not as easy as one might think and so after a while I ended up putting him on a lunge line to let him flail around without me being too involved.

(Around this time Minuette was trying to channel her inner hunter but instead channeled her inner princess and had to go on the lunge line as well.  Louis was frantically neighing (ear piercingly screeching) for someone he knew.  Smartie later got to play wild horse by prancing and crow hopping (mini bucking) with CW!)

The day carried on with cleaning, bathing, polishing and shining our horses and equipment all ready for the show Sunday.  I hope that Chemmy will think on his actions of today and channel his inner hunter for this show (though I will be getting up at 5am to lunge him, to hopefully encourage a calm demeanor instead of the spooky nut job I had today.)

phew, long post, no pictures, time for bed.....