I had an affair over the weekend

Despite staying in a *motel*, my weekend in Kentucky was a success. My girlfriend was correct…the place was a motel not a hotel. I was just thankful that our extreme tiredness and post-event cocktails put me in a peaceful slumber each night. Otherwise, I would have been awake and stressing about the condition of the bathroom. Enough said.

My friend and I volunteered to work 8 hours at Equine Affair in Louisville in exchange for free admission and a free t-shirt. With the price of gas I am thinking we possibly lost money. Nonetheless, it was great fun and the perfect weekend away.

We drove the 5 hours to KY in driving rain on Thursday night. We arrived at our *motel*, had a few drinks, and called it a night. Friday morning we arrived at the volunteer booth refreshed and ready for our assignments. We had been assigned to work the information booth; however, we were instead put to work selling programs. The two of us must have looked very trustworthy as we were given several hundred dollars, 3 boxes of programs, and sent to a far arena without being asked for any ID or volunteer info. We could have gone to the beer tent, drank the money, and left the programs and no one would have known. Of course, we didn’t go to the beer tent. Instead we stood outside the Monty Roberts demonstration (where he does his horse-whisperer thing and, in the matter of 20 minutes, a wild bucking bronco is calmed, saddled, and ridden by Mr. Roberts. The bedazzled audience then goes home, whispers the very same words to their unruly horse, climbs on, and spends the next several weeks hospitalized with various broken bones.) Not only did we get to take turns peeking thru the gate to watch The Horse Whisperer, we hawked nearly all of our programs! A+ for program-selling!

After lunch we reported back to volunteer headquarters to find out our afternoon assignment. For the next 4 hours we were to work *Door Security*. We had strict instructions NOT TO LET ANYONE IN OR OUT OF OUR ASSIGNED DOORS. Roger, captain. I am all of 5’2”…an imposing figure to those who think they can slink in and out of the *Secured* doors. I waited for some sort of badge or even maybe a gun holster but we were sent to our posts sans guns, tasers, or even one of those big Maglites that would have at least made us LOOK important. My door post ended up being kind of a hidden exit (major security risk!) so it was fairly easy to deter folk from coming and going. Except for the one guy who was in a scooter-thing and with this big brown-eyed kid. They tried to break in and, although they put up a good argument, I flatly refused to let them enter despite the fact that the scooter-guy was going to have to run down his scooter battery by having to scoot around the entire building to the entrance. I don’t care if you are handicapped…I can’t get fired from my volunteer job or I won’t get a t-shirt or free admission!

The best part about the door-security thing was that my door was right next to Tommie Turvey’s booth. That is Tommie Turvey, Equine Extremist. I had not heard of Tommie Turvey; however, in talking with his family working the booth, I found out he is one of those guys who does all kinds of trick riding. Suddenly I was not only a budding horse whisperer, I was moving toward jumping my horse over a flaming wall! KEWL! It was so interesting to meet the family. I felt like my door security detail put me right in the front row of Hollywood stunt people in addition to the t-shirt/free admission!

My friend and I were pooped after our day of work; however, we still managed to make a few purchases and watch some of the clinics on Saturday. Before we left Louisville, we toured Churchill Downs for a final horse-related activity. Now I have decided to become a jockey...

The End. Written by WalkTrotCanter, Equine Extremist/Horse Whisperer Extrodinaire.