Cob Jockey

Yesterday I went to the Hoosier Horse Fair.  I've gone for several years now - in college, I went to hang out with my friends all day and giggle at the strange things we saw, and post-college, I'm finding that I'm only there to see people I know.  This year, specifically, Shae's (Castleberry Protege, the pony in the picture) sire was the Welsh representative on Stallion Row, so I mainly went to hang out with him and Lisa and take pictures.

This stud was stabled next to Dundee.  My brain has a hard time processing this as "horse".  It goes straight to "dog".

Hanging out with a "rare breed" at the Hoosier Horse Fair is so entertaining.  I couldn't make up the questions Lisa gets from the attendees.  Some gems:
- "Does that horse have Mustang in him?  He sure looks like my Mustang."
- "What's a Cob?" "Oh, I been wondering what my horse was!  He's about 14hands, he must be a Cob too." "What's 14.2?  Oh, well ponies have to be under 14, so this horse isn't a Cob?"  We spent about 5 minutes explaining to this gentleman that outside of 4H, the standard for ponies is 14.2, and the .2 denotes two inches.
- "Is your horse part draft?"
- "Have you tried sweating his neck to get rid of that crest?" (Cob stallions naturally have huge crests)

It's fun introducing people to the breed, though.  By virtue of his stunning good looks (no exaggeration here, he looks like something out of a child's fantasy) he gets a lot of visitors and a lot of questions, which allows us to tell stories about the breed and introduce people to it.  Dundee, with classic Cob disposition, is also a perfect ambassador for the breed, allowing little children to pet him and always standing at the front of his stall to greet the people.  I am privileged to be able to spend the kind of time that I do with the quality of animals that I have access to, and I enjoyed myself so much yesterday.