The title of this post is the tag line for the horse show at the RDS (RDS stands for the Royal Dublin Society which owns the exhibition space and grounds I think it might have started out as some kind of body to promote science and culture in the 1700s ). On the tag line, I would have to disagree on a range of levels.

Firstly, it reminded me of lots of other days out at the RDS (the young scientist, the craft fair, the ideal home exhibition, even the Bruce Springsteen concert). It also reminded me a bit of the gardening show in the Phoenix Park (Bloom). The big difference between a good day and a bad day at any of these events I am beginning to realise is whether you were comped your tickets or not. If you have to fork out for your tickets your expectations are a lot higher.

Secondly, the clear implication is that you will have a good time. I did not have a good time.

The horse show is a bit of an institution (150 years old this year according to frequent announcements). When I was a child I would spend hours lying on the sofa watching the show jumping with my mother (in case you were wondering, as I was, Eddie Macken the undoubted star of those years is still alive – good for Eddie). Mr. Waffle and I have never been before because we usually take our holidays in the first three weeks of August. In a deeply regretted decision we are not taking our summer holidays until end August/start September this year so we decided to go and check out the horse show.

We arrived and forked out €65 for the pair of us to get in. Already I was not enthused. We were greeted by an information desk. Did they have a map of the area? No they were out, but I could take a picture of the A4 page on the desk. Did they have a schedule of events? No, they were out, but I could take a picture of the A4 page on the desk. Handier than downloading the pdf from the useless website but I felt strongly that I was not getting value for my €65. Was there anything going on today that the information desk man would recommend? “Well, the Aga Khan trophy is on in the afternoon.” I was thrilled at the prospect of seeing live what I watched from the sofa for years. How exciting; what a happy coincidence.

We wandered around the stalls. It’s a huge fair type thing really with lots of opportunities to buy horsey kit. Your horse blanket needs are met as are any requirements you may have for feed, horsey antiques, tweed, tack, saddles and so on. I was taken by a woman who had printed on her gilet (gilet sales also huge) an advertisement for hot and cold remedial horseshoeing; there’s a whole world out there. There were also an extraordinary number of stalls selling fedoras and panama hats and I have never seen so much hat wearing before; the horse enthusiasts are also hat enthusiasts. I thought some of them looked very dapper. It makes a change from the ubiquitous baseball cap. Somewhat to my surprise, the crowd was quite a bit younger than the Bruce Springsteen crowd though the hat wearers generally were not teenage girls who were very well represented.

I was keen to see actual horses and we wandered around and there were horses, I’m sure excellent horses, but they were doing nothing interesting, they were being shown. Men in bowler hats were jogging around fields with them. It was a bit dull if you know nothing about horses and I thought fondly of the excitement of the (free) polo match I went to see a couple of weeks ago. The greatest excitement was when the winner of the Irish draught stallions (section B), lost his sash and his man in a bowler hat tried to put it back on; an act the stallion regarded as clearly dangerous to his wellbeing as he reared up in indignation. Bowler hat prevailed in the end but it was a rare moment of entertainment in a dull day. Have a picture of the runner up of the draught stallion (section B) competition (referred to as the reserve champion- in case something happens to the actual champion?).

We went for lunch. The RDS map was pitifully inadequate and we ended up settling for the carvery option having tried and failed to find the sit down restaurant. I went for the vegetarian moussaka which even as I queued up with my tray, I felt was a mistake. It was a mistake. The moussaka contained one sad slice of aubergine and otherwise was composed entirely of potato with a layer of tomato sauce on top and three microscopic cubes of feta. It came with roast potato, turnip and carrot; not a combination I imagine that the Greeks envisaged when putting the dish together. It was not nice at all. Mr. Waffle had the salmon. Also not nice. I suppose if you go the carvery (at the horse show which is full of people who love a carvery) and have something else you only have yourself to blame. It was €49. So far we had paid over €100 between us to browse horse tat and see horses walking around fields. Was I downhearted? I was not because we would see the exciting horse jumping for the Aga Khan trophy.

Guess what? It turns out that to sit down and watch the horse jumping you need to have bought tickets. Further tickets on top of the €32.50 per ticket you had already paid to gain admittance. I don’t know how much they cost because they were sold out. There was, we discovered after much wandering about and elbowing through dense crowds, a place where you could stand to watch the horse jumping on our peasants’ tickets. However, it was full and closed. There were big screens but honestly you might as well have been at home on your sofa. Of course you could hear the excited roar of the crowd inside. “Is there anywhere,” I despairingly asked a man wearing an RDS t-shirt and denying entry to crowds of irate attendees, “we can see some horse jumping? It doesn’t have to be international standard.” “There’s going to be a horse race just behind the stand,” said he. “A horse race? Horses running? In that tiny field?” I asked incredulously. “Yes!” he said. We went. Were there horses running in the small field? What do you think? Ladies and gentlemen there were not.

I stomped to the exit, filled with rage. Mr. Waffle followed, honestly a bit afraid that he might be caught up in my general rage. “It’s not you, it’s the Aga Khan,” I said crossly. “But the Aga Khan isn’t here and I am,” he said nervously. We stopped again one last time at the information desk. “Is there anyone, anywhere doing anything interesting that we could see – dressage; jumping anything?” I asked. “Yes,” said the young woman on the desk brightly, “See here on the programme in this ring, it’s horse jumping.” I was already pretty familiar with the programme at this point and said coldly, “It’s not, it’s 148cm 6&7 year old ponies and they will be walking them around the ring to award a rosette to the best looking one.” “Oh right,” said she, “I actually don’t know anything about horses.”

There you have it. A big part of the problem I think is that most of the punters knew a lot about horses and horse related things and none of the staff seemed to know anything. The website was abysmal, if you wanted to find out how anything worked (a huge part of it is given over to FAQs for stallholders and participants who are surely minority players). If you were just a casual visitor who thought that it might be fun to check out, then disappointment was your lot. If you were horsey and knew from experience how it worked, I can see that it might have been fun. If you came in cold, it was no fun at all, it was like being mugged for your cash and your only reward was an opportunity to spend more cash on a panama hat you didn’t like. I cannot recommend.

Mr. Waffle and I had a great time in the Phoenix park today where we went to watch a polo match. Have you ever been? I can totally recommend. The rules are immensely complex and involve, inter alia, handicapping each player (you start at -2 and work your way up with +1 generally being international standard and 8-10 people in the world at +10); the direction of play reversing after every goal; and a lot about the line of play which I can’t say I totally understood. All of this (and more) was explained to me by a friendly Australian who was unfortunate enough to be sitting beside me. The commentator knew many of his audience were pretty ignorant and spent some time explaining the five kinds of foul in polo; to be honest not really time well-spent as far as I was concerned, I remain pretty confused on this point.

I have no idea what the standard of play was but it was extremely exciting as the horses and riders went tearing up and down the, I want to say, pitch. During the break all of the spectators went out and stamped the divots back in place which I found kind of hilarious. I will certainly be back with my new found polo knowledge. It is free to attend and numbers are low so they need all the support they can get.