Anyone Call for a Plague Doctor?

I'm creepy and I like it.

No, I do not have the plague. But I can assist you with it, if you happen to have it. As you can tell by the background on my blog, I like plague doctors. Here's a brief history: plague doctors were around in the 1600's. They were dressed from head to toe in leather or super thick fabric, keeping them "safe" from the plague. One of these things featured a beak like mask. Often they would put flowers or strong smelling herbs in the mask to help hide the stench of the diseased and dead. They also were not sure yet how the plague was spread, and some though perhaps it was the birds, so the beak pointed towards that as well. Their hats helped identify them, much like a a chef's hat does the same. They examined the sick with a cane, because ain't nobody want to touch or get close to that business.

Hey Pink Zorro, they had PS of Sweden in the 1600's right?

I had been set on being a plague doctor for the annual Halloween Jump Night since the beginning of the year. I decided on a partial mask to help improve vision (and perhaps breathing and/or staying alive) while riding. Enter some steam punk goggles, and a felt halt that I had to fashion over my helmet. Yay for adhesive felt! I searched from something resembling a trench coat, but didn't have much luck, unless I wanted to be a super fashionable plague doctor sporting a cute tan garment with fancy buttons. A fun leather belt and my long Kerrits jacket worked just fine.

Seeing and breathing in that was fun. Just saying.

I have been soooo excited for this jump night. Although the format was changed up a bit from last year to help control the crazy, I was pumped and ready to go. Bacon got her bloody drip trace clip, a bloody hand print gauze thing over the saddle pad, and a bloody arm attached to her breastplate. What a good carcass carrying pony! I was worried she wouldn't recognize me or she would be worried when I came out all dressed up, but she didn't care.

Ah, the arm. Love it.

NOBODY knew who I was. I scared a little girl when we got to the barn. Whoops. On the way over, this dumb guy went super slow as he drove past us and I said allowed "What are you looking at?" and then realized that maybe it was the plague doctor sitting in the middle of two regular people...Anyways, people kept asking who I was or I would hear them talk about me as I rode past. A lot of people loved Bacon's clip, and liked my costume too. But a lot didn't know what I was, and that is ok. The format this year was a costume contest, equitation contest, and high jump competition. Bacon and I tied for second place in the costume contest. The winners were a bee keeper (the rider), her bee horse, and her bee pug. It was pretty awesome. The pair I tied was entertaining, because the horse was dressed as a cow and he is TERRIFIED of cows. I am already thinking about next year (Jekyll/Hyde anyone?)

I won me a bucket of candy!

Next was the equitation round. It started out like a normal flat class. Walk, trot, canter, etc. Then a drop your stirrups, post, halt. Reverse. It was going better than I thought it would. Lindsey (the Pink Zorro!) and Prisoner were close by when one of the other ottb's was done with the whole thing and went careening in our direction. At this point, we were supposed to be doing two point at the canter without stirrups. Prisoner said WHOA MAN CALM DOWN and Bacon said WEEE RACE TIME. At that point, it was called for everyone to come to a halt. My carcass carrying mount had no more brakes, but I got her stopped. Somehow. We each then jumped a cross rail, and a winner was awarded. It was not us.

Such a fancy carcass horse.

Pink Zorro and Wonder Woman! 

Flutter Shy and Spike. Hang on Spike!

Nice knees over the xr.

Lastly, it was the high jump competition. I figured we wouldn't do too well because somebody likes to rub the first rail to determine the height we will be jumping. Lindsey put it best. Bacon is a good jumper, but not a clean jumper. It started out at 3'. Got over that just fine, no biggie. Then up to 3'3". No problem there. I had to hand off my goggles because they fogged up so bad that I couldn't see anything. And my hat flew off. Then up to 3'6". Here it started to look pretty big to me. I don't ever recall jumping that high, maybe we have, but I don't remember. It was just this floating pole, no fill, and it was kind of hard to know how to ride to it. Fortunately, there was a placing pole about a stride out, so that was helpful. Cleared it just fine.

Spiders and spider legs.

3'6" and a bald plague doctor.

Coming around to 3'9" was a kick in the pants. I kept thinking that maybe Bacon would stop or have a weird go at it. I have no idea why, because that mare just kept coming right to it and went over it like we do it all of the time. Clear. Of course, that was the biggest we had ever done in our lives, so that was freakin' awesome. Up to 4' it went. We came around again, but this time we ran out of luck. We took the pole with a front leg. I didn't care. Bacon was totally awesome the whole time and gave all of the jumps a good shot. It is hard to get your long giraffe leggies out of the way! There were three or four of us left in the 4ft round, and only one horse cleared it. He competes at that height, so I didn't feel to bad losing to her either. But guys. We cleared 3'9"! How cool is that?!

3'9" son. 

Aaaannnd the attempt at 4'. Whoopsies!

We threw the horses in the trailer after, and had us some chili and conversation. We got lots of compliments and it was a total blast. Husband got all super competitive for me and told me his grand plans on the way home. He wants me to win the high jump next year (ummm, ha, yeah, sure) and he really wants me to have a truck so I can haul to all of the competitions next year. It made me happy to see him enjoy himself there too, and see Lindsey and Prisoner do so awesomely as well. Ah, Halloween Jump Night is the best!

Bad ass.