Horse Math is Hard. Let's Go To the Feed Store!

Yes, I am aware that I'm running behind on this.  I will detail the events of Monday's lesson later today.  That is, of course assuming I don't come home from work and immediately collapse.  Long story short, they yanked the rug out from under me on a deadline, and I'll be doing good to get out of here before 20:00 tonight.  At any rate, something amusing happened last night that I have to share.  As is usual for Tuesday evenings, I went to the gym to work out with my friend Edolnx (which is pronounced "eedolinx", in case you were wondering), and during a break between sets, he asked me what I'm up to, outside of slaving under the watchful eyes of my diabolical overlords.  I suppose it should come to no surprise that my answer was quite simple:

 

Preparing for the Horse Trial.

 

I told him that I'd completely cleared my calendar for October to make sure I'd be ready for this.  For those who may not know me very well, this is a big deal for me.  For the past 15 years, I've been heavily involved in several different Halloween shows, and until I set my mind to Pine Hill, my involvement in them was sacrosanct.  To say Halloween is my favorite holiday would convey a vague approximation of how much I enjoy it.  But, I digress.  Edolnx asked me what all was involved in a Horse Trial, and listened very politely while I tried for 15 minutes to explain Dressage, followed by 10 more minutes of me explaining the XC and Show Jumping tests, and how the penalty point system worked.  After he'd digested that, he asked what kind of horse you needed for that.  I told him that just about any horse was capable of the level I'll be competing at, but before the recent trend towards Warmbloods, Thoroughbreds were the breed of choice.  To which he queried, "Those are ex-racehorses, right?  Aren't those expensive??".   I told him that in general, a TB will sell for a ridiculous amount of money when it's a yearling, but 3 or 4 years later, you can get the horse for like $200 - $300.  Even horses that won a decent amount of money.  This apparently completely blew his mind, and the only thing he could manage was, "Horse math is hard.  Let's go shopping!  Or, should that be: Horse math is hard, let's go to the feed store!".  I nodded knowingly, and told him that the latter statement is correct.