The Horse World
Awareness of the outside world. “Lunar Communion Sunday is still celebrated annually at Webster Presbyterian.” History.com: Buzz Aldrin Took Holy Communion on the Moon. NASA Kept it Quiet, Blakemore, 2018, updated 2019.
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Last week was a festival of passive participation. Television coverage of the Tour de France. Livestream of the Lexington Horse Show. Virtual Breyerfest. Three events; three modalities.
Naturally, the Tour de France had the best production values. Full-time reporters following the race. Professional commentators covering every move.
Personal favorite was Lexington because I knew people. More tomorrow.
The most varied content award goes to Virtual BreyerFest. Hours of live and recorded coverage. Talks. Workshops. Art contests. Demos.
Wouldn’t it be fun to combine them?
Imagine a horse show with a virtual component to watch from the comfort of your couch. Full coverage of the ring(s), of course. Real-time results. Barn tours. Interviews with riders, trainers, and owners.
RVP tries to add value to their coverage. They stick a microphone on front of every winner as they come out of the ring. While I admire the effort, this is not the optimal time for quality interviews. Trust me, you will not get anything coherent.
On the way out, the folks from Richfield Video interviewed the winners. I talked five times to the poor man holding the microphone. I managed a usable soundbite once. The rest were the same ‘It was great. The horse was great.’ drivel that I used to get when I covered horse shows.
Team Awesome, Pro-Am 2016
Much of the information exists, but one has to cobble it to together. Schedule from the show. Results from a horse show recording page. Livestream from the videographer. Stills from the photographer.
Wouldn’t it be fun to have a landing page with all of this accessed from one place?
Okay, not every horse show, but the top handful from each discipline. Local shows tend to get watched by family members. Although, would grandparents pay to watch a few classes? Would a parent who couldn’t get off work? Fellow barn rats?
And maybe not TdF-level money, because then we get TdF-level scandals. But take some of the coverage ideas.
It wasn’t all watching. There was shopping.
Say what you want about content and fan-engagement, Breyer is a business. Their prime directive is to sell plastic ponies. BreyerFest makes it disturbingly easy to buy plastic ponies. I went a wee bit nuts with the shopping. I will confess to the extent once they arrive.
An outsider’s view,
Her horse is the lightsaber and Han Solo in Star Wars; the ring as well as Samwise in Lord of the Rings. The call to action and the companion.
Gizmodo: 72 Hours in Model Horse Mecca, Menegus, 2016
Later,
Make a horse walk funny and horse people lose their shit.
Ibid
Model Horse [Archives]
Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine
Virtual Brush Box 
“when they arrive” They. Oh, dear.
Thanks for sharing the information about the Lunar Communion.When I lived in Houston – Clear Lake area, to be exact, I was a member of Webster Presbyterian Church. I liked it a lot, and the Lunar Communion is celebrated every July. It is a special communion. The church hey has the small silver cup they took to the moon, in a secure display case there, and it was in a National Geographic magazine story about NASA.
Webster Presbyterian has attracted numerous astronauts and their families, over the decades — John & Annie Glenn, for example. Mrs. Glenn played the organ, I was told by the minister, when I lived there. And, there used to be framed, 8×10 portraits of all the astronaut members, in the church library.
Honestly, if I went to the moon, i’d probably say a prayer or two, too.
What is the plural of they? OTOH, some of them are small. Does that count?
Cool about the service. Small world.