Hopelessly devoted to ribbons

I have ribbons on the brain for a few reasons.  First, with this warm weather (Best. Winter. Ever.), I’m already looking ahead to spring.  And after spring comes the best of all seasons, my glorious summer.

And summer means horse shows!  I can’t wait to get back in the saddle on a regular basis and start pointing Misty towards some shows. 

Misty's like, where am I?

Oh sh*t, a horse show.

I’m also thinking of ribbons because I finally posted some pictures on Facebook of the show I was in last November.  It was Misty’s second of the year (third total) and it was her first dressage schooling show.  Please see the pictures below – she’s a sassy grey star!

My photographer husband comes in handy!

Saluting the judge before my test.

Yay!

Like most riders, I love displaying my ribbons around the house.  When I first brought home these blues, I hung them on my hutch, then they moved to my mantle, and then finally to my home office.  As I was hanging them up with my other ribbons (a variety of 1^st through 6^th places), I started wondering about the colors of the 7^th through 10^th place ribbons.  In your average sized, local horse show, ribbons are given out up to 6^th place, but in larger shows and events, the ribbons go to 10^th.

So I Googled and found this:

1^st – blue
2^nd – red
3^rd – yellow
4^th – white
5^th – pink
6^th – green
7^th – purple
8^th – brown
9^th – grey (must get this one sometime!)
10^th – light blue

Believe it or not, when I was in high school, I liked to shoot for the 6^th place ribbon because it was green and matched the décor of my room at the time.  Yes, that’s right.

yeah girl!!

But as I was doing my research, I found out that in Canada and Britain, the 1^st place ribbon is actually red and the 2^nd place ribbon is blue!  Can you imagine ‘going for the red’ instead of ‘going for the blue?’  What an odd concept to us blue-obsessed Americans! 

Now I just need to bring home some Canadians or Brits – with all the red ribbons I have, they’d think I’m a superstar!

The traditional 1st through 6th.

Some people are creative and put their ribbons and numbers in shadow boxes...I'm looking at you, Kelsey!  Let's hop to!