Horses! Horses! Horses!

Kentucky Horse Park? Has a lot of horses.

Lots of different breeds of horses, with their riders dressed in appropriate costumes:

Although this rider, during the horse-and-rider meet-and-greet after this show, did respond to my eager nerd questions about her bareback riding of her Appaloosa by smiling, putting her finger to her lips, then lifting up her saddle blanket to show me the real saddle hidden underneath.

The saddle set-up on this Frisian doesn't look authentically medieval, either, but there was JOUSTING!!!

JOUSTING!!! Five points if you knew before this very moment that I have a master's degree in English with an emphasis in medieval studies.

I mistakenly brought only my telephoto lens, assuming that all the horses would be in pastures or shows and thus far away. I regretted this for the entire day, as we were invited over and over again to pat draft horses, carriage, horses, saddle horses, and show horses. A trainer walking by with a horse, if one of the girls showed the slightest interest (and of COURSE they did), would invariably stop and encourage the girls to pat that horse, while gamely engaging in horsey nerd-talk with me. I now know several very interesting things about horses, from the reasoning behind giving draft horses very short names to the fact that if a thoroughbred is retired to breed and it turns out that he's sterile, he gets infertility treatments.

The Kentucky Horse Park is also a working establishment, not just a tourist destination, and we were welcome to walk down to the arena area and watch this dressage competition:

It was a hot, sticky, horse-filled, day, wrapped up by a trip to the gift shop for horse trading cards and postcards.

In other words, it was horse heaven:

 The early bedtime that night didn't hurt, either.