I made the trip up to the Barony of Rivenstar (around Lafayette, Indiana) over the weekend to participate in what was, to the best of my knowledge the first ever Midrealm Equestrian Symposium. Let me just say the trip was well worth the long haul up that including being stuck in traffic for two hours along the way with horses in tow. There was literally something for everyone, from the most senior marshals to the very new beginning riders. Many thanks to the folks that got this wonderful event organized, ran it, and/or hosted it!

A quick note, my trip up to the site after not having felt well most of the day was not the best in the world either. Combine feeling ill with a horse pulling during loading and putting a good rope burn on my hand and allow two hours of sitting in traffic on the interstate not hardly moving (four miles in two hours) to allow it all to settle well and you get the idea. Combine that with my good friend Edmund having a blow out and being hours behind me, at least until I was stuck in traffic and you get some idea of my thinking it was going to be a bad weekend. I should have known better. We arrived to stalls already made up, water in the buckets and in general very well set.

Saturday we started the day with some breakfast and much-needed coffee. There was some general discussion between folks present but classes did not start until yours truly got going at 9:00am, with a welcome and given a state of affairs for the Equestrian College. I figured I would be thirty minutes and have a few questions. After the first hour and only being half way through the notes, Peitre graciously bowed out of one class to allow me to continue. The discussion on several issues was really good and general nature of the questions said to me such a sit down discussion from dean to marshalate is needed on regular basis.

During this time it was open riding to participate in whatever games and practicing that anyone wanted to do. Apparently the classes and especially discussion throughout was so interesting that everyone seemed to have forgotten about the riding. Up next was a discussion about the balsa wood jousting experiment, that again I headed up, as I wanted to get that out there in front of everyone. There was a good sharing of equipment and much discussion that followed. Much gratitude to Edmund for his insightful comments during this session as well. I do apologize for regrettably never getting to the jousting demo by the way – there were several issues. First, balsa to make tips arrived late, though it could have been worked around. Lonesome (the newer horse) is a bit green about it and Angel (the backup) came up lame Saturday afternoon). Hopefully everyone will make it to Siege next weekend and get to see some of it.

During the afternoon, I personally got in some riding on Jack and he was being his usual high-strung self, made all the worse by his extreme herd bound attachment to Angel. Once I got him going at the games good a few times we slacked off and let him have off (at this point, thinking we may do jousting later or on Sunday morning sometime). I got back over for some of a class on elegant attire for your war-horse. Some of it looked really good and I would love to get my chamfron/crinets finished up. I have inspiration now.

I don’t recall what order things occurred in next, but I know there was a class on the history of the warhorse which was well done and something else that I am failing to recall now. Later, several headed out for a trail ride around the farm, which is where Angel showed up lame. As Jack was having such issues I felt this was a strong suggestion I should not make this trail ride.

I think there may have been another class in there, but I was beat and went to have dinner and get some refreshment. Later, toward dusk, we were entertained His Excellency, The Baron, playing his guitar and singing. A bottle was passed a few times and after moving to a bonfire as stories starting to come out the bottle was passed a few more times.

Sunday morning we awoke and after a hot breakfast and more coffee (seeing a theme?) we heading over to do some games practice, get some pointers, and work on getting some folks authorized. All went extremely well and we now have three new riders in the kingdom. If you see them, a hoo-bah for Enkara of Darkhorse, Patrick von Brandenburg, and Sir Jasper of the Lakes. Additionally, during the Sunday morning time frame I wrapped up the testing for two new marshals and hoo-bah is also in order for Erelwin Sarpo & Azzah bing al Bardawi al Murabbiyyah al Rualliyyah (yeah, that is just two names). Congratulations are in order to all!

I was seriously thinking of heading out after lunch on Sunday, but Patrick’s two session class on historical mounted combat techniques was too much for me to pass up in the end. I stuck around to see that and it was very interesting. I was proud of that moment when asked about left to left passes and I was able to cite that in Germany some styles in late period with full breastplates were right shoulder passes at tilt. The class was very interested and the mobile wooden mounts (very similar to some illuminations I have seen) added a lot to the class. I still have a doubt or two about a couple of moves working when at speed (even the trot) but will explore that at another time.

Again, if you missed it this year you should put it on your calendar for next year right now! Truly a great event, even with traffic issues and lack of jousting due to lame horse.

Tags: equestrian, event, marshals, Midrealm, sca, Society for Creative Anachronism