At my school, there is an equestrian team. We have English and Western riders. There is also a rodeo club which is seperate from the team. They do all of the traditional rodeo events--barrel racing, roping, etc. But they are seperate entities, something anyone familiar with the horse side of the school knows.

So yesterday in team meeting, the head honcho of the organization that raises all the athletic scholarship funds came to our team meeting to "raise awareness of what they do." She exclaimed that she was a huge fan of the equestrian team and equestrian events--especially rodeo. We all managed to not roll our eyes and not giggle. "And I love..." she paused, trying to think of the word. She knew it was the opposite of Western pleasure, so she made a game guess: "...Eastern riding. I went to an Eastern show up at the Cow Palace once; I absolutely adore Eastern riding." She continued with her spiel for a couple of minutes, we applauded, she left. One of the girls raised her had and asked, "Coach, can I ride Eastern next year?"

To say we had a good belly laugh over that one would be a serious understatement.

La"The coach actually congratulated us for not laughing at her outright"Zorra