HIPICO Santa Fe

A couple of days ago, when we decided that we would prefer to move closer into town instead of our original plan to move to the other side of the lake here, I was using the Allstays application on my computer to look for potential campsites. One of the locations that it indicated was "HIPICO Santa Fe"...

When I went to the website to get more information, I realized that it was an equestrian center that allowed use of their campsites outside of their show schedule. I checked the event schedule to see if any shows were scheduled during the time I was interested in, and found that they had a dressage show today and tomorrow, which they had named "Dancing with Horses"!

I am a big fan of dressage, particularly when it is performed to music, so we decided we would try to go to see it today.

We arrived just as a class of Prix St Georges (the beginning international level of dressage) were competing (https://www.dressage-academy.com/training/prix-st-georges/) - this beautiful Friesian (I think) was in the midst of his "go".

After his "go" - outside the ring.

Another of the competitors

 They did not give any awards while we were there - I don't know whether they do a group of awards all at the same time or what. Many of the classes had only 1 or 2 competitors so maybe it would take too long to give out awards after each class. I think the Prix St Georges class was the most advanced of the classes that we saw.

I don't know a lot about dressage competitions, but it appeared that each class had a particular set of figures that they were to accomplish. There were classes listed as "Fourth Level" or "First Level" and then something like "Test 1" or "Test 3". From looking at more information online, the levels relate to the complexity of the movements the horse and rider are expected to do, and the tests are the particular order of the movements (https://www.dressage-academy.com/training/dressage-training-pyramid/).

Each horse/rider was assigned a specific time for their class. Watching it was like being a spectator at a golf event - everyone was so quiet, and the only time any noise was made was clapping (polite, sedate clapping, no whistling or cheering) at the end of the "go" when the rider proceeded to the center of the ring and bowed their head to the judge.

Some dressage videos in case you are interested:
One of my all-time favorite dressage videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKQgTiqhPbw
Charlotte Dujardin narrating her 2012 Olympic win: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmWOMEwg-1M
Charlotte's performance as narrated by the announcers at the Olympics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgxnpXH-pB0

I was remembering when I first was "bitten" by the the dressage bug and started to learn to admire it - when I was a teenager, I participated in a hunter/jumper workshop hosted by one of the judges that judged a lot of our 4-H horse shows at the state level (it may have been Mrs Dupont - one of the Virginia Duponts), and one of the evenings, she brought one of her horses to do a dressage demonstration for us. I remember her saying that it was a green horse, but it was the only one in the stable that was clean, and since she didn't want to have to clean up a horse to come for the demonstration, she brought the green one - but in my eyes, the horse was fabulous! I was never a dressage-level rider - but I could sure appreciate the artistry. I've always thought that dressage was a horse dancing - so was happy to get to see a few of the entries today. Unfortunately, they did not use music - I guess getting the horse and rider to move in time to the music and get the music that synchronizes with the steps is a high level of competition.

Thinking about my heroes from equine days makes me think of Rodney Jenkins too - I just looked him up and found some videos with him as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKQgTiqhPbw  Rodney rode hunters and jumpers - he was a magician on the back of a horse! I remember a jumping competition at the Richmond Fairgrounds... the thing that sticks in my memory was one of the fences that looked like a brick wall. One of the grounds crew had been in the ring and my memory is that after one of the blocks of the wall was grazed by a horse and slightly out of place, he reached up to the top of the wall to put it back into place. A few minutes later, my girlfriends and I were leaving the grandstand and the grounds crew member was standing near the area where we exited, and I realized that he was well over 6' tall... and had reached UP to put the block back in the right place... that's when it was clear to me how high those fences were - probably nearly 7' tall!!! If you watch that video, there is one place where Rodney is shown clearing a 7'2" wall.

Enough of the horsey talk...

After leaving HIPICO, we drove into town to do some shopping - I had a prescription at CVS, we wanted to stop at Sprouts and Sams Club, and I had an order at Walmart. Remember a week or so ago we put a belt back on for the air conditioning compressor? We decided we should have replacements for those two belts on the bus, so I had ordered them through Walmart. I had been notified that they were in, so we stopped by the Walmart to pick up the order (and other things too). When we opened the package, although they had the same packaging, one belt was definitely different from the other.

Two belts

See how this one has the V's cut on the inside - we didn't want that... and the name on the outside of the belt was "Green Line" (I think), even though the package said Dayco. In looking at this picture, I notice that the packaging has an "X" on it... I wonder if it has been previously indicated as the wrong product.

The correct belt - labeled as DAYCO 17700 (hard to see the second 0).

So.. we returned one of the belts, and Dwayne called Autozone. They have the belt we want, so we'll go by there on Tuesday after we move to the campground in town.