Scottsdale 2012, part 2

This post will continue my trip to the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show last month.

For those of you who don't know about the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show, it is part one of the Triple Crown in Arabian horse shows and the most prestigious. Part two is the Canadian Nationals in August and part three is the American Nationals.

The first class was the Show Hack class. I love this class! The riders are asked to show at a walk, trot, and canter; collected, normal and extended gaits, and to hand gallop.

As you can tell from the line-up, it was a big class.

The next class was WESTERN PLEASURE. The horses were over-flexed and oh. so. s-l-o-w. but still, very beautiful. This lovely gray Arabian (with the ridiculously loooong tail) was named Grand Champion.

I llike how the two horses are looking my way. I wonder what they saw?

This little girl was having lots of fun with her pony.

Here we are!

Baby strollers aren't just for babies. We saw lots of pooches transported this way throughout the show.

The Purebred Arabian Native Costume class is always a crowd favorite with lots of pizazz, colors, and flash...and pretty horses. The crowd roars when they are asked to hand gallop and the class is over way too soon.

 

I like the golden tones of this photo. It really reminds me of the Arabian desert sands. And it's such a pretty horse!

Next, was an English Pleasure class, which is a Park class without the extreme action but still, very animated. I thought this rider was a bit large for his horse. Don't you think so, too? However, if I remember correctly, they took Reserve Champion. Crazy, huh?

I liked this girl's jacket, from a previous show.

 

The next class was new to me. It was called the Silver Saddle class for two reasons. One, because the winner got a beautiful western saddle with lots of engraved silver and two, because the horse and rider had to have a combined age of at least 70. 

It was open to half Arabians as well as purebreds. A horse with any percentage of other breed is known as a half Arabian.

I really liked this Appaloosa team. Because she's using a bosal, I'm guessing it's a young horse, so the rider must have been over 65? They took the title of Grand Champion. Yay!

This big bay sport horse ridden English was another favorite of mine. Too bad I didn't get it's head in the photo.

This is how big the arena is and how far away all the action was from where we were sitting.

Did I mention that I love my new Canon camera? Of course, I'm still learning how to use it and the lighting is simply awful for picture taking.

After the show, we drove back to the hotel and crashed for the night. Stay tuned for more of my trip...

Sunday Stills (3/5/12 Openings)

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was to find an opening and frame something on the other side.

While traveling last weekend, my camera "goofed" and took this of me driving. 

This is the judges' stand at the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show.

While window shopping in the art galleries of Scottsdale, I couldn't resist this bronze life-sized figure framed in the window. Of note, the yellow and orange things in the left window are actually ceramic M & M's. 

Here's a better close-up of the figure.

A few week's ago, I took these photos at the zoo.

For more Sunday Stills, please visit here.

Scottsdale 2012

After some lengthy debate about going to the Scottsdale Arabian Horse show this year (because of issues at both home and work) I decided that I needed this mini vacation with my mom, so we took off Friday morning for Phoenix. I have done most of my travels by car and, although it's slow going, it's often the journey that makes for an especially memorable trip.

On the first day of this trip, my mom and I were treated to wonderful vistas and amazing cloud formations. Long, colorful trains often traveled along parallel to the highway.

We had fun guessing where these beautiful bronze sculptures were going, maybe to Scottsdale? They didn't stop in Gallup.

 I love how the red rock contrasts with the blue skies.

These government houses all had such brightly colored roofs.

The cloud formations were so unusual, all ribbons and swirls. 

This water tower is at Fort Wingate outside of Gallup.

You can see the old bunkers in this photo because of the snow remnants.

The clouds entertained us for miles; the formations were ever changing. 

Then we came to Gallup, full of neat old buildings along the Historic Route 66 Highway.

How about a larger than life wooden Indian?

Seeing this landmark tourist trap, gift shop in the heart of such beautiful country (such a shame), we knew we were almost to the Arizona state border. Notice how the clouds are kind of frizzly now?

In Arizona, you can see all kinds of things along the freeway, a parked school bus on a hilltop and a dinosaur, who knew they were still around?

This gift shop, with teepees, is near the painted desert but, look at the clouds!

We had to stop at one of the many trading post/gift shops. Sometimes you can find good deals on stuff. At this one, I got good photo opportunities to take pictures of fake teepees.

But these are real petrified wood tree trunks. Amazing, aren't they? They can be polished up to show all kinds of beautiful colors.

Even the rest areas offer pretty vistas.

We traveled all day and finally arrived in Phoenix as the sun was beginning to set. It was fun to see hot air balloons in the sky, reminding us of home.

We found and checked in to our hotel and then went back out for an evening of gorgeous, fancy Arabian horses at the WestWorld equestrian complex in Scottsdale, later that evening.

to be continued...

Friday Foto

Sometimes you just have a bad hair day.