Washington International Horse Show

A few weeks ago, Darin called me to ask if we wanted to go to the Washington International Horse show. Free tickets through the pentagon. He figured the kids would love anything to do with horses. I wondered how they could have a huge horse show in the middle of the city. Well, when we got off the metro and the smell of manure was strong, I realized that they can just close down the street by the Verizon center and put up horse stalls in the middle of the street:)

Of course, the kids loved taking the Metro and did pretty well. We got our tickets and found our seats, which were really good. When we arrived, they were just finishing up a horse jumping competition. I have seen them on TV and always wondered if they were just always set up that way. Found out they can disassemble it very quickly.
I took this picture of one of the riders up on the jumbotron because he was an olympic gold medalist. Forgot his name, though.

They even have a zamboni for the dirt! Guess the horses can't function in messy dirt:)

Here they are taking down the jumps. The were so fast-quite impressive.
The only bad thing to the evening was that there was a lot of drag time in between the events. This is a lady from somewhere in Europe. We we were wondering what she she was doing at first. Dressage. Making the horse move in certain, intricate ways. Kind of slow and hard for the kids to watch. Jordan was very interested in her dress and flowing things.

Here is another olympian in dressage-Ashley Holzer. It was actually more interesting to watch her do it than the "princess" lady as Jordan called her. I could see the intricate movements the horse would make. The lady next to me was sooo into it. At one point she leaned over and said "you know, this is really special." There was also a couple moms with little girls behind us and they knew all the lingo and what was going on in each competition.
Who let the dogs out?

In between competitions, they brought our Jack Russel Terriers. They had them race into this little house. Of course, the kids absolutely loved it!
The dogs were so funny-they ran so fast. Sorry the pics aren't the best...
Here is the last event: Puissance.
This horse show was serious business-they even had the guy dressed up funny...
This is the "Puissance" which is french for..ummm....ummm.... "horsey jumps over a big wall." Each round they would add more bricks to the wall. It was really something to watch. You would hold your breath each time the horse jumped the wall. Pretty crazy!! The last round had 2 riders. One horse ran up to the wall, then stopped cold. Smart horse. His rider wanted to try again, big mistake. This time he got to the wall and made a quick left causing the rider to be hurled into the wall...quite dramatic!
doing more jumps. I kept playing with my camera to get the right shot...very difficult with the arena lights.

Overall it was really a fun thing to do, especially when we got 5 free $30.00 tickets. Perks of working at the Pentagon. I think it may be on the "without kids" list, but I would go back again.