I haven’t had a chance to do up our horsies properly, but we need a bit of the light stuff, anyway. And this year, the medieval faire cooperated. Usually, I get horses looking rather dramatic and awesome, or like serious workhorses, but this time round, I caught a few in moments of derp.
The above horse was brand-new, didn’t like the crowd noise or the festival atmosphere, and I believe in the above photo she was expressing her opinion of the proceedings. This was shortly before they called upon her to joust and she said, “Nope. Nope nope nope noper NOPE.” Smart lass.This one gave us two moments of derp. There’s the above, and an even better one below:I salute these noble steeds for their contribution to the world’s stock of derpy horse pictures. For the most part, they’re firey and fierce and majestic, so I know it took extra effort on their parts to get the derp done right. You can contribute by captioning!If you’re local, do check their calendar and see when you might get a chance to go enjoy their live performances. Is anyone else around on October 5th? I’m rather tempted to go…
Just a lil’ joust? Neigh!
For the first one, “Ew, you want me to what?? I’m a lady, not a mule you can order around at will!”
The second one, “Whoa, ref, bad call, there! Really bad call, and you’re real close to my hind legs!”
Third one, “The ladeez love this strut, oh yeah.”
I have a great big doofusular percheron, and I can just imagine how badly he’d destroy me if I tried to get him to charge anything with a lance…. Ouch. For a very short while I fell in love with the idea of horse archery (aka: “what could possibly go wrong?”) But once I started thinking of all the things that could go wrong, and my horse’s reaction to having a bow fire on his back… ugh, ow. During the cavalry period, apparently, it was fairly common that newbie sabreurs would lop off a horse’s ear by accident, then get the ride of their lives. So, I always respect the amount of time spent training horses to tolerate such militaristic shenanigans.
There was a halloween when I thought of trying to make a fake “rocket launcher” costume for my horse; sort of a katyusha-looking thing out of cardboard tubes and some 2x4s and plywood fins. I figured a bit of olive drab tempera paint (about 2 gal) to camouflage the horse would round off the effect. As I was explaining the idea to a friend, the horse gave me a look that promised me a huge amount of trouble, so the idea was filed under “impossible” and the poor dogs wound up in sherpa costumes instead.
Caption for the 3rd one:
“They see me joustin’, they hatin’…”
Caption for the 2nd one:
(Judge guy is saying) “Now I will demonstrate what happens when I stick my finger up the horse’s ass…”