Showtime

Sunday was our first full day at Eldhestar. We woke up bright and early, partly because the beds were hard and the room was hot, but mostly because we were excited. Today - finally! - we were going to ride. We ate a quick, buffet breakfast with our group and headed straight to the barn.

We went to our box and collected our saddles and rain gear.

Then we loaded them into the trailer.

Horses were everywhere.

So many!

Riders were everywhere, too.

It was a sea of orange rain suits.

I could hardly contain myself. It was showtime!

Well, kind of.

Our guide had told us Eldhestar was having a horse show that morning and she was riding in it. We would leave after the show was over, so once the trailer was packed, we went to the indoor ring arena and took a seat. 

A cat walked past us, and I whipped out my camera to take a picture. The Europeans were incredulous.

"Don't you have cats in America?" Hedwig asked.

I laughed and said, "I take pictures of everything."

Which is true, but also, that was a pretty cool cat. I took enough pictures of her to fill a post. A short post, but still.

But I digress. The "show" was actually a demonstration much like you would see at horse expo or BreyerFest.

The announcer told us the history of the Icelandic breed, and the riders showed off their horses' gaits.

They rode over a board placed in the middle of the ring so that we could both see and hear the difference between trot (above) and tölt (below).

There were a few period costumes, including this one worn by our guide, Karin.

When it was over, the audience was invited to come pet the horses.

Here's a little video overview of the show.

Also, separate clips of some of the gaits. This is flying pace. It's not a gait you can ride inside a small arena so they opened the doors on either end and rode right through!

And here's the tölt. Although I ended up having a fairly complicated relationship with tölt, I absolutely love the way it sounds. I could listen to this video all day!

When the show was over, we headed back outside to the trailer. The real show - the one we had travelled all the way to Iceland for - was finally about to begin.