Bluegrass Live show report and other stuff!

 Greetings, readers! Well, I survived my first "real" model horse show - and what a time I had! It was a heck of a trip, from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, and everywhere in between. Crazy! 

I got to the show hall around 9:40 and was greeted by a line of participants waiting outside the doors - the librarians hadn't arrived quite in time to open the building for us! Fortunately they showed up slightly after I got there and we all got into the show hall, although the show started about a half hour behind schedule because of this, which became an issue later on. But anyway. 

I got all my models unpacked and carefully lined up on my table (in order of classes they were going in, naturally) and when the show got started, I triumphantly placed my Storm on the table for the Arabian class...only to notice that the OF Mini division was happening at the same time! I had (naively) assumed the OF Mini division was taking place after the OF Trad/Classic division due to it being on the classlist after said OF division (rookie mistake, I know). Duh! Why wouldn't they take place at the same time? Otherwise the show would take forever (haha...)! So I hurriedly unpacked my Stablemates and quickly put my first entrant on the table for OF Mini (my Willamette, being shown as a Half-Arabian). 

As an aside - I had picked out only 25 Traditional models to show, because I didn't want to overwhelm myself at my first show. Then I saw the OF Mini class list in the packet, erroneously thought the division would take place after the OF division, and decided to bring a few Stablemates so I wouldn't be sitting around doing nothing at the end of the show (HAHAHA...sigh). So I picked out 10 Stablemates to bring along for that division. Then when I was almost done I noticed my palomino Playful Foal and wondered if it would show well as an American Cream Draft (answer: no). So in total, I brought 36 models to the show. 

Anyway, when the OF Arabian class was announced as having been judged, I went to get my Storm...and was stunned to see he'd won the class! Same with my Willamette. Whoa! I had been hoping to at least place in a few classes, maybe win one or two...and things were starting out strong with two wins! After a few more classes, during which I got two 4th places and one third, came the callbacks for OF Trad Light Breed Champ and Mini Light Breed Champ...and I won again, in breed and collectibility respectively! Edit: oops, my Storm got the reserve Light Breed Champ, not first. Well, it was still winning in my book. Way more than I ever expected - I was amazed.

Things kinda calmed down after that and I didn't win another division champ until later in the day - and then they picked up massively, because the show started running long and the last couple of divisions had to be judged very quickly so we could get out of the show hall in time for the library to close. And I ended up missing the callback for the OF Mini championship class, which was super disappointing for me - but later on my 2022 auction model got reserve overall champion in collectibility (after a slight disappointment involving the judge putting the champion ribbon in front of my model rather than the reserve champion ribbon), so that (mostly) made up for it!



 I'll just add "missing the callback for overall champion OF Mini at my first show" to that list of things I'll be kicking myself about for the rest of my life, along with "not taking the chance to attend the Sunshine Celebration" and "not attending the 2019 Breyerfest live auction." But as a friend who was there said, it's not the full live show experience until you've missed at least one class. So at least I got the full experience! I just wish it had been, you know, a breed class rather than the championship. Oh well. 

So anyway, here's a more representative picture of how I did in the show! 

There's one blue ribbon and blue satin flat missing that apparently got misplaced in the confusion at the end of the show, but those are being replaced. Needless to say, I did way better than I thought I would! Huzzah! Of the 36 models I brought to the show, 22 of them placed in some way (if I wrote everything down correctly, and I'm pretty sure I made at least one mistake), so I'm pretty happy with these results. 

As mentioned above, the end of the show did end up being pretty rushed due to the time crunch - hopefully that gets fixed in the future.

Other things I was happy with:
-I was pleasantly surprised that my matte Namid managed to get fourth in breed in the Mustang class - with all those Firehearts on the table, I wasn't expecting her to place at all, so when she did I was really happy! I don't think the Forever Saige mold shows particularly well, but figured I'd put her on the table and see what happened.
-My Merle managed to get sixth in breed in the very full Quarter Horse Stallion class, so I was pleased with that as well.
-My Via Lattea got fifth in breed and third in collectibility in the Standardbred class, which was not full at all, and there were at least five other Via Latteas competing against her, so I was pleased with that as well. Not sure how many Via Latteas placed ahead of her, if any. I'll have to see if I can find another model or two to show as a Standardbred if that class is going to continue to have...not very many models in it. 
-My glossy Zenyatta Foal got second in a very full Sport Foal class, which I wasn't expecting! This was toward the tail end of the show when they were hurriedly judging the foal classes. 
My Playful Foal, Leti, won her foal class! I was pleasantly surprised by that as well. I don't remember what the competition was (other than my nonplacing other Playful Foal), but I must have thought it was tough? 

So, I suppose the natural next question is: do I want to show again? YES! The problem is where. I now have a pile of NAN cards I could use, but I'll be too busy working and doing Breyerfest stuff during Breyerfest week, so NAN is out. There aren't any other shows scheduled around here in the upcoming few months, at least that I can find. Happy Kamper Live is a possibility, though, so I'm tentatively hoping to make it to that. Other than that, it looks like there won't be many more opportunities for me to show until next year. But maybe something will happen in the fall! I hope so. 

That's all I can think of to talk about on the showing front - I do have a small Breyerfest update though. Yesterday Breyer announced that they'll be taking backorders on the Blue Zeus model, which makes sense since Fireheart is so popular that the 3,000-piece run is pretty much guaranteed to sell out, and the real Blue Zeus has a pretty big following that'll probably want to buy the model. So don't worry about being online the second Breyerfest opens, because if you miss out on the initial run, you can get a backorder one (to be delivered in December). Huzzah! 

Also in Breyerfest-related news, I'm on to my next project - the diorama contest! Yes, I decided to enter the contest for the first time this year. I've had an idea for a diorama kicking around in the back of my head since about 2013, and this year's theme is perfect for it! So that's what I'll be working on for the next few weeks.