jingle bells

when i was in high school, i got the horses show bug. of courses we all know that high school age boys havent a bit of common sense. i was no exception. i had bred a mare to a appaloosa stud and gotten a wild colored, blanket hipped horses colt. by the time i was a sophmore in high school i had that horses broke to do just about everything you could think of.  naturaly you could rope off him, he wasnt a bad western pleasure horse,  trail courses were a peice of cake and reinning was just boring.  we won every 4 h class there was available so we moved on to the breed shows. we were placing very place we went and winning some. one of my fellow competitors made a wise crack about the only thing we didnt do was a costume class. in the appaloosa world this entailed dressing up like a indian and riding around the ring showing off how well broke your horses was and how authintic your costume was.
   i said something to my mom and she got started. i went to the library( wernt no internet then) and got a book on the nez perce indian tribes, the people who raised the appaloosa horses before the white man contaminated the breed with draft horses.  well i found out that the nez perce  tribe was found of bells on their clothes, their horses anything they could tie them to.  so i bought a BIG string of      big ole jingle bells and had mom sew them all over the costume. then before the class entered the ring i braided a bunch more in my horses mane and tail.
      since i never had shown in a costume class before i i had paid attention to a couple classes at previous shows. a wise old trainer who took a liking to me told me always be the first in the ring or the last. the judge looks at those the hardest.  well i hung back in the shadows when the costume class was to enter the ring.  when every one was in and i was the last to enter i stirred ole app up into a dead run and came into the ring with all those bells a jinglin like santa clause on christmas eve.  i had a war bridle on my pony and feathers damn near draggin the ground . as i passed each other horse in the ring i heard the crowd roar. i figgered they were just impressed at my great, authintic costume. as i lapped the arena i noticed no one else was horse back. some were trying to catch their horses who had run to the far end of the arena. the crowd was laughing so hard you couldnt hear the loud speaker.
    casey darnel was the judge and he was standing in the middle of the ring crooking his finger at me. i slowed down to a trot and rode over to him.
   " just wait here kid he told me, let those other folks catch their horses so i can figger out who wins second and third" thus ended my costume class career. by the next year i had out grown my costume and the desire to compete in that class. besides if i told some one i was gonna enter no one else would!!