HOYS 5/10/07

We had a fabulous time at HOYS on Friday - no riding, just spectating. We were up at 4am to get to the NEC at 7am to watch the coloureds. They were all stunning, we sat in those seats in the Caldene arena for FOUR HOURS without moving! All the winners were gorgeous, and very non-woolly for this time of year (not fair, Dolsey looks like a sheep!).
Then we watched the Search for A Star Hunters, which is a class where amateurs can go and qualify for HOYS and professionals are not allowed in the classes. You have to not have been to the horse of the year show or the royal international horse show on your horse before. I have to say that they all looked as if they had been there before, they were all stunning!

Then we did the important part - shopping and lunch! Dolsey came off a very lucky pony with a new bridle, bit, grooming brushes, and some posh stuff for conditioning her saddle. Didn't buy anything for myself of course, but Dolsey's much more fun to buy for.

Then back to the main arena to watch the musical dressage. Wow, those horses are talented! Then the double harness scurry and the pony club mounted games. The pony club games were so funny, in one race they had to dress up in a pantomime cow costume and run back to the finish! It had everyone laughing and some poor person in the cow costume fell over and as a result so did the other half of the cow. It was so so funny, definitely one I want to see again!

More shopping and a while later, we watched some show jumping and the mounted police activity ride. Definitely the highlight of the day was the mounted police, it is amazing what those horses will do (jumping through fire for instance) and the riders are just as talented! They took off their saddles mid-jump! It was amazing, the best HOYS I have been to so far (saying something as we have been every year since about 2002!) Oh, and we also got a photo with Geoff Billington, and got his and William Funnell's autographs.

Here is my video of the coloured classes for anyone that is interested: