Horse Bowl and Hippology

If you're like me, you have no clue what that means...I know I didn't until this past weekend.  Madolyn joined our local 4H Horse Bowl & Hippology team just after the first of the year.  They have "practices" every Monday night and after the very first one, she came home with a huge stack of books.  Eeeeeck.

I thought, yikes, if she enjoys this, that will be the day, this won't last a month.  Funny thing, she LOVES it.  Of course she does because I would probably hate it.  They study everything about horses, and I do mean everything.  They have anatomy books and models that they use to practice guessing the parts.  They have all kinds of horse tack that they quiz each other on.  They use color pages and diagrams.  She has notebooks, etc.  And I think all of that relates to the Hippology part.  I say 'I think' because honestly I'm still somewhat lost on the whole thing.  The horse bowl part is just like scholastic bowl....and I had never been to a scholastic bowl meet...so I didn't even understand exactly what that meant either.   So I just googled the subject matter and got all kinds of hits in case you're interested in learning all about the horse.

This past weekend was the event of the year...what those kids practice for all year long. It was the Regional Horse Bowl & Hippology at a local junior college.  The bad thing...we had to get up and be on the road by 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday...ugh!!  But we did it, and we weren't even late, which is awesome for us.  I actually dropped the girls off and went shopping for a while, got my oil changed, drove around Mattoon aimlessly and finally decided that gas was a tad high to be wandering about with no reason.

I returned to the college and the girls were practicing up for another round of horse bowl.  I was told I could go in and watch if I could be quiet...geesh, it's like they know me or something.  I sat in the very back and tried to be where Madolyn could NOT see me because she has the habit of looking at me constantly...and honestly, I would be of little help on this one. 

Like I said before, I had never even been to a scholastic bowl meet or match or game (what do you call it?) so it's was all foreign to me.  (I can't remember, but I'm guessing we didn't have scholastic bowl when I was in school.)  Anyway, it was all so formal and rigid, and many times I wanted to say, "Oh, come on that was close," which would've have been a major no-no.  No one even had to tell me that, it was understood.  Our team did real good the first match I watched.  They had already won one earlier and lost the second by just three or four points.  The last match was against the hardest team, and phooey, they beat us pretty bad.  I think it was the fear factor.  I really wanted to give them a little pep talk before going on that it didn't matter how good these kids were normally, etc, etc, but I wasn't their coach...and maybe that's not what you do at Horse Bowl.   The overall contest is calculated by accumulative points so that last match killed us.  I think we got third in the horse bowl for that age group. 

I knew maybe about ten of the 60 questions they asked, which is pitiful.  See, I would've been no help.  But the ones I did know and they didn't, oh man, it's like watching Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy and shouting at the TV, only I couldn't say a peep, but inside I was screaming, "Come on, you know this."  I know it's so much easier to be sitting back and watching, than in the hot seat. My stomach was a ball of knots, I cannot imagine what their's felt like.

It was interesting to me, and I probably should've skipped shopping and watched the whole day (boy, was it a long day) because I need to learn that stuff too, or at least some of it.  And I now have a much better idea at what Madolyn needs to practice and study on because I get the idea.  I just couldn't grasp it before.  Madolyn got third in her division for the Hippology (which her mama was pretty excited about because this is her first year and she just started in January), and she will advance to the state contest here in a couple weeks.  A few of the other girls advanced also so it should be fun.

After my weekend education, when I hear someone say "Horse Bowl and Hippology," at least I won't be thinking of horses bowling with a hippopotamus anymore...