Pint Size Plastic Live Recap

Its been a VERY busy month on the plastic horse front, and before October, I was very excited about having all sorts of things to blog about. I forgot that I would need, like, TIME, to write the posts! I started this post sheltering at home, in anticipation of Sandy, and I managed to be very good about prepping for the final show of this 5 week period yesterday (down to just packing halter horses, and work is likely closed tomorrow) so here I am, doing laundry and making soup and catching up on online things. We are now in the Sandy Aftermath period and while I have heat, power and the internet, work does not, so I seem to be on vacation this week. I think there is even going to be tack making tonight.

ANYWAY. Just pretend its October 7th.

Pint Sized Plastic was held in the Albany, NY area on October 6th, and I went for a couple reasons:

- I was off that weekend
- It had a small performance division, and I thought it would be a good place to give Polka Parr T, with his newly repaired leg, a spin. So to speak.
- It had a novice division, and I thought it would be super fun to bring along my nieces.

Sadly, whatever photos I took that weekend appear to have vanished. I have no idea what happened to them :( So all pictures in this post were taken by my sister in law, Kathy, who tagged along to keep the girls in line.

This show was on the small size, which I expected. I think it was a good First Show experience for MacKenzie and Riley, as it was not so large as to be overwhelming (see: me at Breyerfest vendor tent, 1995) and everyone was VERY nice, including and especially the two novice judges, Taylor Simpson and Emily Bailey. They moved classes at a leisurely pace, since the girls were the only showers, and gave thorough critiques after each class, making sure to tell the girls the things they'd done well before gently offering suggestions to make things better.

They also appreciated creativity (such as the horse caught in the explosion at the silly bands factory) and humor (MacKenzie showed a 3 legged model named after my own, late real horse, Trivia. The judges liked the "zombie horse")

Both girls did REALLY well, and took home armloads of rosettes, and happily they split the grand and reserve. I would like to point out that the reserve-the classic scale shire known as Champ-was one of the horses we cleaed up with toothpaste a few weeks earlier. He belongs to Riley. Nano, the Esprit owned by MacKenzie was grand.

They also won a ton of stuff in the raffle (including the Holy Grail of raffle prizes, MORE HORSES!!) and came away with amusingly different interests in the hobby. Riley likes performance. MacKenzie is more interested in collectibility--I think its more the radical colors of some of those.

They both want to do this again. They both have visions of NAN. Win.

Anyway, I have tubs of sticky wax for both of them come Christmas. Sticky wax fixes everything.

On the Open front, the performance division moved fairly slowly, as judge Karen Pajak was working and showing china, and as we know, Karen likes to fill classes singlehandedly. Karen did a great job judging, and the division DID end at lunch, which made me feel a lot better about getting home in a timely manner.

Oh, and Polka Parr T is qualified for Harrisburg, which was pretty much my goal for the show.

Not bad for an old, busted up horse!