4th of July Parade

I was finally in the Fourth of July Parade. I don't even remember the last time I was in a parade. This year I rode my horse in Ajo's parade. I don't know how many people came out to see it. I would say maybe 300ish, so it wasn't a big crowd by any means. We didn't cheat them out of a good show though. I spent all day at work Thursday and Friday getting my horse prepared. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of that. My horse was absolutely terrified of flags, and sirens and lights, and horns, and circling ATV's and everything else that we introduced him to over the two days of training. We also spent time polishing our brass and leather and fitting those stupid little saddles so that they all looked the same with the same rings and strings. It was all worth it though. No one got bucked off like in years past. Also, none of the horses reacted when they kicked off the parade by firing the canon twice unlike last year's fiasco. Here's some photos:

_________________________________________________

This is before the parade started. Notice how my stirrups are almost as big as the rest of the saddle? Yeah, I had to "borrow" them from my regular saddle which is a much larger western saddle which weighs at least double what this little guy does.

__________________________________________________

This is the beginning of the parade route. My face is right behind the Border Patrol flag.

___________________________________________________

This is a close up that I cropped of my horses face as we walked past where Nicola was taking pictures. I think some of the kids thought my horse was "nodding" at them. Luckily, none of the kids suddenly ran off. Had any hispanic people run away from us, I don't know if I'd have been able to hold him back. He does like to catch people.

________________________________________________

And here is a parting photo just to show that not only did we polish and shine our boots - we even slicked up the hooves with hooflex right before the parade, and they're still glossy here at the end of the parade.

_________________________________________________

And the funny story of the day is that afterwards, we went to have breakfast at the church. One agent claimed that not only was it a violation of separation of church and state, but that he wasn't entering the "trap" and he wasn't "drinking the kool-aid." He stayed in the truck while everyone else went in to eat, but he did eat the pancakes that I brought back out for him.