Welp, back from grooming at a real show. And I am proud to say I observed MUCH WTD going on! Horses calling to friends during their tests, giraffe trots AND walks, run away canters during warm up, and several garanimal spottings.
In our own camp, a rider ripped her coat after her first test-of course it was temporarily fixed with duct tape until we could have the time to sew it.
Then, while watching a test, one of our barn people casually comments "Hey-that is the guy that was scratching my back at the weiner stand!" We had to leave ring side because we were laughing so hard.
After a 12 hour day, driving home from the show I got a flat tire. Nothing says WTD like a bedraggled groom with grease smeared all over her face and a donut on her car. Especially since when said donut was put on the car, bags of feed, horse blankets, etc had to strewn along the shoulder of the road to access the donut.
A few horses broke the front buckles on their sheet-voila-fixed with baling twine.
Duct tape used to afix pads in a helmet.
And since I am NOT a huggy person, several barnmates tag team hugging me until I dropped to the ground in a fetal position.
Fun was had by all.
In our own camp, a rider ripped her coat after her first test-of course it was temporarily fixed with duct tape until we could have the time to sew it.
Then, while watching a test, one of our barn people casually comments "Hey-that is the guy that was scratching my back at the weiner stand!" We had to leave ring side because we were laughing so hard.
After a 12 hour day, driving home from the show I got a flat tire. Nothing says WTD like a bedraggled groom with grease smeared all over her face and a donut on her car. Especially since when said donut was put on the car, bags of feed, horse blankets, etc had to strewn along the shoulder of the road to access the donut.
A few horses broke the front buckles on their sheet-voila-fixed with baling twine.
Duct tape used to afix pads in a helmet.
And since I am NOT a huggy person, several barnmates tag team hugging me until I dropped to the ground in a fetal position.
Fun was had by all.
In fact, I'm not just one of those weekend hobbyists who occasionally enjoy a quaint escape into WTD, I actually have the WTDiness bred into me. Sigh... Here is my confession, please be gentle in your judgement. You see, I was the kid at the shows with the non-horsey, redneck-hippie parents (think clean jeans and an untorn sweatshirt as dress-up clothes), a fat buckskin pony that didn't have a left lead, horror of horrors, rubber dress boots because I couldn't afford leather during my first show season... you get the idea. Has anyone ever seen the Red Green show on PBS? Imagine Red Green go to a dressage show and you'll begin to see my predicament... I'm proud to say that I'm overcoming these humble roots and I can almost blend in with the best of the DQs now, provided that no one looks too closely. However, I'm scarred by one memory in particular. You see, my very supportive parents never had a lot of money to support my riding endeavors. Long story short, the trailer I ended up with was bought secondhand from a man who MADE it - from salvaged scrap metal. 
Now please understand it was completely safe and actually very well-built with a nice wood floor, rubber mats etc. At one time it even had a nice two-tone blue paint job, although the stick-on letters advertising his farm had half peeled off. Trouble was, he had never bothered to paint the INSIDE, so when I opened the back doors to lead out my dear fat pony, all the world could clearly see the red background and white script 'Frien...' on one side and "dly's' on the other! (I have no idea where he got hold of an old Friendly's sign, but there you have it). And wait, it does get worse... one particular day the usual truck we used to haul it broke down, so my dear dad came to the rescue. Did I mention he was a tow-truck operator? Yep, you guessed it, we arrived in the former-friendly's-sign trailer hitched to the bumper of a tow truck. 
What's an aspriring DQ to do? Thankfully we won a blue ribbon that day much to the horror of the curtain-bedecked and color-coded luxury monstrosity parked next to us. Sigh... This secret has been eating away at me for years. Thank you for listening.
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