The Dixie National Rodeo Pageant takes place over 2 days. On Day 1 everyone brings their horse in, checks into the hotel, and then prepares for what some would consider to be the most important part of the competition – the horsemanship. After all it IS a rodeo pageant! Unlike the state pageants where the horsemanship outfit is a big deal, there was a standard outfit for the horsemanship – a white button up shirt, black jeans, and black hat. I didn’t own a black felt hat at this point, so I borrowed one from my 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Mahaffey. Generally if you were to measure everyone’s head in a crowd, mine would be the smallest. However, if you put Mrs. Mahaffey into that crowd, she would win the prize hands down. I walked around with my hair in curlers for at least an hour before we sprayed it into a concrete mold of curly hair. Then it was off to the barn. Gideon was as shiny as a new penny as I tightened up the girth of our barrel saddle I had spent the entire night before cleaning with a toothbrush. I swung up into the saddle, and it was time to make it happen. To be honest, I only remember 2 things from the horsemanship competition.
1. The black hat was so tight that it kept popping off my head during the rail class. As I was trying my hardest to talk Gideon into pretending he was a western pleasure horse, I found myself more preoccupied with my hat than anything else. No one had ever mentioned using bobby pins to keep my hat on, so instead I had to ride around with my right hand holding my hat on and my left hand holding the reins!
2. We had a great horsemanship pattern…for a barrel horse. I thought this was a “rodeo pageant!” I was proud as a peacock to be riding around on my hot (that’s the horse term for overly energetic) and handsome barrel horse, until I saw that some of the girls showed up on retired reining horses. Reining horses spend their lives doing horsemanship patterns. Our ride was flawless, as long as the judges were into Nascar. When it came down to it, with the hat-popping rail class and the speed-demon pattern we all but kissed the prize for winning horsemanship good-bye.
The show goes on. I desperately clung to the hope that the judges liked that I could ride my horse fast (again, it’s a RODEO pageant), and they found it intriguing that I could ride my horse and hold my hat at the same time. The next day was the interview and modeling, so I fed Gid his dinner and went to the hotel for some much needed beauty rest.
Lesson for the day: Be prepared with a big pack of bobby pins, and don’t be shy about using every single one of them to keep your hat on.
Soli deo gloria,
~Sarah
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