A Very Pony Weekend: Western States Horse Expo and Pony Sleepover

Every year in June, the Western States Horse Expo comes to town, and I think I’ve gone almost every year to do some shopping, but this time  it was 50x better because I got to go with L and Megan!  I had known that Megan was coming up to look for a saddle for Rico and her mom, but when L said she could come up too it quickly turned into another pony sleepover.

I had told them that Andy needed to ride his lease horse on Friday, so when they arrived we headed out to watch Andy ride and have L meet the infamous Flying Potato. Spot and her roommates got treats from all of us and Spot got a bonus cuddle session from L and Megan.

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After a quick visit, we headed to Andy’s barn where Nicole’s Murray is boarded also! Sadly, Nicole was in Australia or she would have definitely been a part in our weekend shenanigans, but we did say hello to the Murray Monster. He was highly suspicious at first but with a bit of bribing he decided to cooperate for a photo op or two.

Bribery works

Such a cute Murray

We finished the night with some thai food, froyo, and stayed up wayyy too late talking, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! L and Megan are two pretty cool people and I’m so glad I’ve become friends with them.

The next day after pancakes, eggs and ham, coffee, and more coffee, we made our way to the expo for a day of shopping and all things horse. The Western States Expo is much more western discipline focused, but there were lots of vendors that catered to english and western people. I drooled over all the fancy trailers for sale, with this trailer being my favorite with its unique tack area:

Where do I sign?

I ended up buying a US Rider membership ($20 off for signing up at the Expo), ice wraps, supplements, No Thrush, and a muscle soreness rub. Oh, we also all went nuts and entered every single giveaway/raffle we could find, because who doesn’t like free Platinum Performance, free grain for a year, or a $300 SmartPak gift certificate? We checked out Megan’s mom’s new saddle which was crazy light and hilariously we found show photos of L and Carlos at the CSHA booth.

The soon to be Rico Saddle! 

We were having an awesome day so far, but it wasn’t over just yet! We ended up going to a local B show to watch a little and check out the normally well stocked tack vendors there. The show is a Beach Party theme so everyone has their stalls decorated with beach/tropic themes, people are showing in Hawaiian shirts, horses have leis on, and the arenas are given tropical names. We checked out all the goods, though I restrained myself from buying anything since I spent a good bit at the expo, and just watched some of the jumpers go before we head back to my house.

Our chosen food group of the day was Tacos, so before L and Megan left we had another round of tacos at a really good local taqueria down the street to close our the weekend. The tacos we had at the Expo were pretty sad, so we obviously needed better ones.

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I had such a fun, horse filled weekend with L and Megan but damn I was exhausted! It was a whirlwind of a weekend. There’s a big NorCal blogger meet up happening in a few weeks but I’ll actually be in England for vacation, sad but not sad? Either way, I can foresee more epic visits in the future, but this time Nicole will be able to join in on the fun too!