I Remember Gold Days

Edit: He woooonnn! 8D Loony won his little Western Pleasure class. AMG. Perhaps we'll have to do this again with him sometime...

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This is Loony's entry to the Drum Horse Society Draft Showcase in Massachusetts.

This was drawn start-to-finish to a few songs from Kimbra's Vows album -- "Settle Down," "Old Flame," "Good Intent," and "Plain Gold Ring." The title's a recurring line in "Old Flame."

Also, I realize that there are a lot of little sloppy things, and I'll fix them if I've got time, but I wanted to get this in before the show's deadline. I really wanted to enter more of my horses in this show, but I realized this past week that drawing accurate driving tack is REALLYREALLYHARDAMG. So I need to practice some before I actually post any of that bullshit work. -ded-

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Horse's Name: All That Glitters
Horse's Reference: [link]
Rider's Name: Niels Richardson
Class Entering: Western Pleasure

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For a weekend, Rockroot Farms became a draft horse winter wonderland. Of course, there wasn't really much snow left on the ground, but there was every flake left in Massachusetts was one more flake than what was left in North Carolina, so the Tamarack Park team was pretty thrilled.

Their plans had kind of fallen apart for this show, so the Tamarack Park team was glad to have ample distraction in the form of beautiful horses and a beautiful landscape. You see, they'd been counting on entering Sunny and Glory, their Percheron duet, in the paired driving class, and were even hoping that they might be able to enter their Palo Duro quadriga team (the Percherons, Goldie, and Loony) in the large team driving class... and then they hit a road block. Or, rather, there didn't seem to be any way to disassemble their driving gear and ship it to Massachusetts without either incurring a huge bill or potentially ruining their gear. After all, none of them were driving experts, and nobody wanted to risk not being able to put the cart back together after incorrect disassembly.

A disappointed Lane left three of the six horses he'd planned to haul at home with his wife -- the Percheron team, and Goldie. In the six-horse slant trailer, Loony, Outlaw, and little Aria endured a long drive to New England. (For the record, Outlaw and Aria were just along for the ride; they had a hunter show in southeastern Canada immediately after the Drum Horse Society Draft Showcase, so the plan was to send Lane back to North Carolina with Loony and Bullet while Anna and Niels continued north with Outlaw and Aria.)

The decision to put Niels and Loony in the Western Pleasure class was a weird one to make. The Richardsons owned a grand total of one western saddle and corresponding tack, and used it only for a horse's first ride, and only if that horse was a little "jumpy." To use it seriously, in a show setting, felt unnatural to the whole family -- but they were reluctant to put two of their horses into the same class if they could avoid it, and the only feasible way to do that with Bullet and Loony was to put one of them in the Western Pleasure class.

Loony got to be the guinea pig. He'd been taught to neck-rein already; all the Tamarack horses had the basics of neck-reining down, and most of them moved more off leg and seat cues than anything else. The golden gelding had a reputation for being a little "jumpy," too, or at least he had the reputation of a trickster, and the Richardsons figured that not only would he be less able to pull "tricks" in a bulky western saddle, but also that if he did decide to act up, they'd want him to do it in a discipline he wasn't regularly shown in. (They'd have the excuse of, "oh, he just never goes western, is all," y'know?)

Finally, the moment of truth arrived, and Loony looked just fine in his bright blue western rug. Niels tried to match him with a turquoise-ish dress shirt, and even though the shades weren't exactly the same, they were close enough that the pair cut a striking figure. Niels hoisted himself into the saddle with a foot pushing off the truck's front tire for leverage; once in the saddle, he heard giggling as he donned his cowboy hat (on loan from the farrier, of course).

"What?" he snapped, giving his gleeful sister the evil eye.

"Nothing, nothing," she said, waving her hands. "It's just -- Ah ain't never seen uh cow-boy like you, mistuh!"

Anna dissolved into a fit of laughter, and from somewhere around the other side of the trailer, Niels could hear his father having a healthy guffaw, too.

Niels's ears began to burn as red as his hair. "Shut up! This is how you have to dress for Western Pleasure classes!"

"I know, I know," Anna replied, walking alongside her brother and his horse as they neared the arena. "I just think you're cute, is all. Go git 'em, pardner!"

And that was the last thing Niels heard as he entered the ring, a smile on his face and a dark agenda of revenge in his heart.