The Infamous Quiz

Every year, the Heartland Region of the United States Pony Club has their annual Quiz Rally. This is an unmounted competition where members go and showcase their knowledge of horses by answering questions and performing various tasks. This competition is an ideal competition for members who might not have their own horse because you don't need your own horse for this competition. It is a very popular rally for younger members because after you go for a few years it gets old because it feels like you are sitting in school for a day.

This rally is one where although it gets many young members competing, it is the least anticipated rally of the year. This is because no actual horses are involved, it is held in a school, and it is all knowledge based which means you have to study before going.

This rally is coming up in one week so the younger members of our club have been preparing for the past few months. This weekend my friend and I are responsible for setting up a mock rally so that the competitors from our club can see what it is going to be like. Both my friend and I have competed in quiz for four years and now have an officiating position for one of the stations.

Of course I had to come home again this weekend in order to organize this for our members. Between tonight and tomorrow at 1pm, my friend and I have to make sure my barn is clean, put together about 12 stations with various levels of questions, and make sure everything is organized and correct to give the competitors the feeling of the real rally.

Normally, this would be very easy, but with this being my first year at college and me not being completely active with our pony club, this small task seems to become a rather large, daunting challenge. I only have the few weekends I am home to arrange this because everyone knows there is not much free time to work on things other than homework.

With both of our experiences at Quiz, we say that we are perfectly fine never competing there again and only helping. So, we have been roped into taking over what is called the Mega Room which consists of 10 tables with 10 matching questions. This sounds easy enough but when you have to come up with topics, have different difficulties of questions, and come up with so many questions it gets difficult. Not only do you have to come up with the questions, but we also normally make posters with the answers on them so they can match them.

Although this competition is not very exciting, it is a competition that requires everyone's participation. Whether you are a young member or an older member, everyone can have a job. This is the regions first rally of the year and it is a great way to start off the competitive season. Everyone looks forward to seeing old friends and catching up on the latest news of the winter. It might not be the most fun, but it is definitely worth everyone's time.

Weekend Adventures

This past weekend, I came home for the weekend. The purpose of this trip was to clean our barn up so that we could have our local Pony Club come out the following weekend for a seminar. I was pretty excited about this trip because it would give me a chance to spend a lot of time in the barn, ride my horses, and just be around my horses.

Things started Friday night when I got home and went out to clean stalls. Now, I realize that my parents are in charge of the barn when I'm away, but I didn't expect everything to be changed and moved around. I did not even know how to get in my own barn. Every door was locked and last time I checked we didn't lock our doors. After figuring out how to get in my own barn, I walked in to realize that everything had been changed or moved around. I had to search for things that normally had a specific place.

After eventually making it through the Friday night chores, I knew that the barn really did need to be cleaned up and things needed to be put back in their proper location. I was ready to tackle this project over the next two days and make this barn look as spotless as a barn could. I woke up the next morning (well, technically it was afternoon) and I was ready to get started. My mom had other plans though. She was the one that wanted me to come home and clean and now she wanted to go shopping. I couldn't complain because I do like shopping, but this was my first clue that this big job was not going to be done.

After a long day of shopping, I convinced myself that I was going to wake up early on Sunday and work on the barn for a good part of the day before I had to come back to Purdue. As you can guess though, this didn't happen either. I woke up around 10am on Sunday and knew it wasn't even worth it. Instead, I decided to go out and ride my pony, Luke.

To some, this might sound like loads of fun, but I knew he hadn't been worked in a while and was going to be crazy. So, after many failed attempts to just get in the saddle without him trotting off, I was successfully aboard. For the next 30 minutes, I found myself doing tiny little circles with him just to make sure I had some kind of control. After that amount of time and getting very dizzy, we were able to walk around the whole arena without trying to unseat me. I decided to quit on a good note and not push my luck. Needless to say, I came home this weekend too and I still have a dirty barn to clean before Saturday and I still have a pony that needs to be worked more. One of these days, I will accomplish everything I want to do in the time frame that I want it done in. Until then, I guess I will just have to improvise. (The picture is not my barn, my barn is not quite that bad, but it was used for emphasis.)