A Horse Halloween! Or, How I Learned to Dress up my Horse and Love that Bomb.

As Halloween approaches it is the perfect time for Halloween parties. This past weekend we had one at our barn and it was great fun! There was an obstacle course and scavenger hunt for the children, lots of good food, and a horse costume contest for the adults.

I LOVE horse costume contests! I love costumes by themselves, but they are incredibly more fun when combined with horses. I very frequently make costumes (husband and I go to comic conventions and renaissance fairs and I always make our outfits) so it's fun to try to make one for my horse, Buddy.

I asked many friends what kind of costume I should make for Buddy and they had many good ideas. I thought he could be the painting "Starry Night", a brick wall of graffiti, a dust bunny, or an Egyptian pharaoh. Husband thought he should be a sea horse (which we have done in the past) or the terminator (not sure how I could accomplish that!) My best friends suggested a pumpkin (Buddy is REALLY fat...), "Draculorse", a lamp, or a mushroom. Mom threw in the tooth fairy, Winnie-the-pooh, or the Goodyear Blimp. Looking at pictures of the Goodyear Blimp and remembering the mushroom suggestion I got a great idea! Dr. Strangelove!

For those of you who have never seen the movie "Dr. Strangelove" you should watch it! It's a black and white comedy about the cold war. It is very funny. There is an  iconic scene in which, through a misunderstanding, a nuclear bomb is dropped and the character "Major Kong" accidentally falls out of the plane with it. Major Kong then rides the bomb down while hooting and waving around his cowboy hat. That scene has been referenced many many times. An example that I can remember (I've seen many I can't remember) is the casino "The Atomic Wrangler" in the video game "Fallout: New Vegas". The icon is a cowboy riding an atom.

He was supposed to have little tail fins on his bum, but they wouldn't stand up correctly :(. The nuclear bomb in the movie was named "Hi There!" so I made sure to include it on Buddy.

The only problem with the party was that I ate way too much. I went WAY over my calorie count (1500 calories over my goal). I did walk for at least 3 hours though, and I rode a nice quarter horse named Dexter, so I burned some of those extra calories off. Looks like I'll lose 1/2 lb this week instead of a whole pound. Any downward is progress though, and I'm happy about that.

What do you think would be a clever horse costume?