Kentucky Derby Museum Part 1

On Tuesday, Melissa and I arrived in Kentucky. Instead of staying at a hotel, we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast. There was a resident Border Collie named Fly.

From our window, we could see fields of horses and cattle.

The next day, we drove to Louisville to see  The Kentucky Derby Museum. It was my first time and it had been a while since Melissa had gone.
The Barbaro Statue stood out front. 
We took a tour, which included seeing the racetrack. But before getting into that, we walked around the actual museum!
Plenty of outfits filled the museum. Fashion isn’t an art that I’m into, but some of the outfits were pretty cool!
I loved the Derby Hats.

There’s a breyer!
The Winner’s Circle has a manikin of the current winner of the Derby in it. It’s updated each season, and this year it’s American Pharaoh. 

Loved his face!
Exhibit cases held tack, saddle clothes, and other racing memorabilia.
Affirmed’s saddle cloth
(Can’t remember who this belonged too)
(Racing saddle that I can’t remember who it belonged to).
Secretariat also had an exhibit.
 
Each Derby winner had a block that included their info, so here’s a couple of the blocks.

Before the 2003 Seabiscuit movie, there was this one. I saw it years ago on TV and it had actual footage of Seabiscuit racing.
I must say that my favorite part was the simulation ride. Melissa and I played four or so times. 
We also dressed up like jockeys. Five hours of  the drive down I decided to learn how to take selfies. Yay for texting and having a selfie savvy sister.
That concludes the museum part! Next comes the racetrack and a couple of actual horses!

Adorable Things Come In Small Packages

What is cuter than one miniature donkey?

Two miniature donkeys. At the Farm Show, there were two 15 month old miniature donkeys that were apart of Catra’s Miniature Horse Extravaganza. Everything about them was adorable. The sound of bells filled the arena.
The two jumped.

And decided to not jump.

The two also stepped on a mat. 
Everything about them screamed adorable. The markings, coloring and attitude really made them fun to watch!

Cowboy Mounted Shooting

After the RoundTable Productions of the medieval games, the Island Long Riders came in and did Cowboy Mounted Shooting. 
It was funny seeing two representations of different time periods back to back. It probably wasn’t as funny as I thought it was. I blame the dust. :) 
The Cowboy Sport Association has the document of rules on its website.
The competitor has two single action pistols that he or she uses to shoot balloons. The competitor also wears western attire. 
This is how the balloons were attached. 
An interesting thing that the announcer said was that while the gun has 6 slots for bullets, only 5 are loaded.  
There are no rules for breed. The equine can be any breed, donkey, or mule. The competitor has two single action pistols and shoots five balloons with one pistol and then shoots five more with the other. 

 They follow a course. The Cowboy Sports Association has a bunch of the courses listed on their website. The demonstration did multiple courses during their time.

  From the website, it said that light targets(balloons) are supposed to be the first to be engaged. The rider who has the fasted time and has shot the most balloons wins. One of the courses was run with the competitor running down to a barrel while shooting the five balloons on the left side. Then horse and rider turned at the barrel and ran down the other side, shooting the five other balloons.

 Cowboy Mounted Shooting was very cool event to watch!

Running The Ring

After the introduction, one of the ‘games’ the knights did was running the ring.

The riders rode down the line with a lance.

A ‘squire’ held the ring in his hand.

The goal of the run was to end up with a ring on the lance. 

Interesting stuff when looking up info:
The Medieval Tournament by R. Coltman Clephan said the lance was 10 ft 7 inches. That’d be fun to scale down. Also according to the book, Running The Ring was a later form of the quintain.
The RoundTable Productions website said the quintain was a training tool for a jousting knight.