Halloween is coming – What is your horse going as?
Oct 02 2009
A reader sent me these great pictures of her kids and their horses all dressed up for fall costume classes. I love stuff like this! Costume classes are a great way to have fun with your horses and your kids can be as creative as they want in coming up with ideas. When I used to teach lessons, my polo ponies had to wear everything from pegasus wings to unicorn horns to a full body costume of feathers. I’ve seen a green blanket painted with scales to make a dragon, a tan fleece blanket covering pillows to make a camel out of an Appendix mare, and horses bodypainted as zebras and cheetas!Â
So let’s have some fun today – what are your horses going as this Halloween? Or just hypothetically – if your horse was going to wear a costume, what would s/he go as? What would suit his personality?
I think my VLC would have to be a surfer dude…that would suit his laid-back personality. He could wear a long blonde wig, have a surfboard strapped to his side, and of course big sunglasses!  He could even wear a tarp as a wave, ha ha.Â
Shame he’s not a reiner, that’s a discipline where adults get to play dress-up too – freestyle reining competitors can wear just about anything and the class is always a crowd-pleasure. Some examples:
Stacy Westphal – Note what parts of her costume aren’t there. This is a heck of a great example of horse training!
Youth Freestyle Reining at Arab Nationals
Really fun stuff. Post direct links to your pics (don’t use the IMG tag, it doesn’t work, I don’t know why) and I’ll make them show up as I go along.
For the locals, remember that the Thurston County Hooved Animal Rescue’s benefit horseshow is this weekend. Pleasure/Eq. on Saturday, games on Sunday. It’s only $7 a class and $25 for a day stall, $30 for the weekend, so you can’t beat the price. Come on out to the Trails End Arena in Olympia and support a very worthy rescue!
For the Texans, the Bluebonnet Horse Expo is taking place next weekend. This is a full day of clinics and demos, silent and live auctions for great horsey stuff, and an opportunity to meet horses available for adoption. If you are near Austin, check it out!
Finally, if you’re in Seattle and want a Thoroughbred, I understand at least 18 of them are being dumped at the Enumclaw Auction now that the Emerald Downs season is over. Come on out and save one from the meat buyers – 3:00 p.m. Sunday at 22712 SE 436th St in Enumclaw. You should be able to take your pick for $300 – $500.
50 comments to “Halloween is coming – What is your horse going as?”
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Last year I dressed my horse up at a ghost. I went to the dollar store and bought three huge white tablecloths which I then cut holes out of for his eyes and ears. I taped them together and took pictures of him. He was quite good about me tossing these tablecloths over him and then lightly drawing with marker where his eyes and ears were so that I could make the holes. It doubled as desensitizing to flapping fabric. We were hacking earlier this year and went passed a line of clothes that were blowing quite violently in the wind. I was with a friend of mine and her very calm, been-there-done-that horse was spooking while my youngster just looked at the clothes and kept on walking.
The dragon is absolutely adorable!
I have a surfboard you can use.
Not sure what my girls would go as. Arab native costume would always suit them well.
Costume class a number of years ago – winner was horse decked out as a Checker Cab. WISH I had a photo. Amazing costume.
I am surprised Fugly did not comment on the performance of the featured horse in the Arabian Youth Freestyle Reining. This young person’s performance is a perfect example of why I no longer have any interest in competing at or even watching Arabians compete: the horses are overbent, often with gaping mouths, most leaping into lead changes as the rider bit-saws all the way to top ribbons. That is not horsemanship. That is not training. That is not “true” competition but a test of survival for the poor horse.
This pony is absolutely the cutest and most tolerant pony I have ever seen. He was in a costume class at an A show.
Pony
And this was my horse and I a couple years ago. She was a ballerina. With wings? We still have the tutu in the garage and I’m just waiting for another reason to pull it out!
Ballerina
(I hope those links work…)
Static (our uber incredible gelding) would totally be a Superhero – we’d paint his flymask and get him a lightweight sheet just for the occassion
Perfectly fits his personality, and he is a superhero – takes care of anyone we put on him, but rises to the challenge when anyone wants to take it up a notch. It’s like Spiderman helping old women across the street and then zipping through the city after the villian…
Mia (my mare) would get dressed in a “red dress” blanket, as I always say she’s the “Lady In Red”. Sweet, smooth, sassy, and a huge heart.
I noticed the gaping mouth and lack of smoothness, but it just wasn’t the topic. Sometimes I overlook that sort of thing in the interest of not going wildly off-track with my post.
Those links are fine. If someone posts direct to a jpg or gif, I’ll change it and make it show up.
My barn every year olds a halloween party. This year, my paint gelding is going as a bull (with the horns and everything! Made out of toilet paper rolls) and I am going as the rodeo clown =]
Posting to my own comments…
Someone needs to buy this guy, geld him and break him. This is a nice horse.
http://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/grd/1399938014.html
Pedigree:
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/exxtra+perception
That’s no $250 horse, he’s just in a bad spot.
I just love the fire coming out of the pony”s nose!! That’s great!! As for us, my sister and I are planning on being in a Halloween parade…we want to do the “Shrek” theme. My scrawny little nephew will be lord Farquaad upon my white mare and I will make her body armour (i’m thinking I can make it out of painted cardboard pieces) . I was going to attempt to make our other mare the Dragon costume. Shrek, Fiona, Puss-in-boots and the Gingerbread man-(he will also be made out of cardboard) will all be there too. Best part is that we also have Donkey!! A boarder at my sister’s barn has a mini grey donkey that we are going to take with us.
Last year I was Little Bo Peep, and my faithful horse was the sheep! She’s such a patient understanding mare. I love this stuff too, never did grow up in that department! LOL I’m working on this year’s costume, if it turns out, i’ll send pictures!!!
I always wanted to make my big black mare a black widow spider and paint an hour glass on her big fat blaze. Maybe I’ll suggest it to her new owner.
Last year I dressed as a hula dancer, and my mare was my grass skirt–not recommended for skittish horses who might object to the swishing sound, but I use my girl for marking endurance trails and she’s used to having surveyor’s tape hung all over her.
The year before that was the best: she was a pirate and I was the parrot on her shoulder
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aarenex/3975022460/
This year, not sure. I’ve got a Santa outfit for her and a reindeer suit for me, but I’m also considering Alice (me) and White Rabbit (her)….
I have always thought it would be fun to body-paint my horse
Just get out some non-toxic water-based paints and start painting and see what happens! It would take a lot of paint, though!
I thought about putting rainbow stripes in my white horse’s mane and tail and dressing up as Rainbow Brite…
hahaha I love halloween when all the horses get dressed up :}
last year my horse and i took some kids from the barn trick-or-treating. He got more apples than we got candy.
this is from last halloween where we were robots and he quite literally was a “push-button-horse”
(they’re a little hard to see but look on his side :} )
he even had a plug in his tail, poor horse
the silver stuff on his neck is actually dryer piping, with a wire mane on the other side… (sorry for the bad pics)
don’t know what will happen yet this year!
lets see if this works better
Tons of costume Ideas on my costume blog at http://halloweenhorse.blogspot.com
We used to do the costume class at the October horse show every year. My all time favorite: we dressed a (very patient) large bay tobiano (I think I have that coloring right–the varieties of paint coats are new to me) draft cross as an ice cream sundae. His coat was the vanilla ice cream and fudge, and we got him to tolerate this contraption for the “dish” made of a length of stiff hose that formed the top of the dish and hung around him (near his shoulders) with some yellow fabric hanging down. The rider wore a puffy white top covered in pieces of batting as the “whipped cream” and her helmet had a red cover on it for the cherry. It was a hit! I wish I had the picture!
I love Halloween. Before retiring my Morgan/Percheron gelding we did a different costume every year. Once he was a rare black Unicorn. Another time he was a Ring Wrath horse from LOTR. We won the Spirit of Halloween award at6 the Gettysburg Halloween Parade one year. He was the ultimate parade horse, nothing spooked him and he was always “On”. I think we did around 50 parades together.
My current riding horse, Springtown Amos, isn’t a keen on parades but he will do what ever I ask. 2 years ago we went as the Halloween Knight complete with knight’s helmet and glowing red eyes. I put red and glow in the dark glitter and paint on his hooves and in his mane and tail. It looked pretty awesome. I haven’t decided on this year’s costume. I might resurrect the Ring Wrath since I won’t have a lot of time. We are participating in the Markland Battle Of Hastings event the end of October on the eastern shore of Maryland. That one requires 1060 AD gear.
A Bumble Bee on a Sunflower with a Lady Bug on his back!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1481581904&v=photos#/photo.php?pid=30291868&id=1481581904
Dressing up horses and ponies is so much fun! =)
A few Halloweens ago my barn hosted a Halloween Party with a costume contest that a lot of us volunteers and some of the boarders participated in. It was great! Here’s me in my knight & warhorse costume! I made it entirely by myself and was very proud of that at the time. =P I had a sword that night too, but I didn’t get any pics, so this a few days later. =P
Here’s a few more pics of dressed up ponies from our barn:
Lance as a Unicorn
http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/10/l_14c3a76baddf8a2f218ae9953f1da993.jpg
Jester as a Autumn Fairy
http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/48/l_d6dd06db8a7c0fde6793e66457792f78.jpg
Stacy Westfall – another classic example of Natural Horsemanship. I love the costume example, but this is the best I’ve ever seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLepGrxwGxE&feature=fvw
See her with her Natural Horsemanship peers, Clinton Anderson and Chris Cox, in extraordinary examples of starting colts in Road to the Horse Colt Starting Challenge.
http://www.roadtothehorse.com/history.html
This year my horse, Yuma, is going as Dino, I am going as Pebbles, and I’ve actually conned the boyfriend into going as Bam Bam! I am so excited!
In 2005 my mare went as a Hippogriff and I went as “Harriet Potter, Harry’s Long Lost Twin Sister”. I have a picture I’ll post as soon as I can find it…
If you like that Stacy Westfall video this one is my favorite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNR_R83dZl8&feature=related
It was a tribute to her father even the announcer broke up and notice what’s missing there, NO BRIDLE, NO SADDLE, NOT EVEN A STRING.
As for the costumes, one year my old mare Suzie and I were going to go as Rainbow Bright and her horse Starlight. But that year it snowed hard for the first time in like ever there was supposed to be a hallowwen playday at the riding club and they cancelled it:(
This is my horse and I last weekend at an Arabian Show. We didn’t win but he looked waaaay to cute as starlite
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2740380&id=510521661
Every year the Iowa Arabian Association holds an open fun show called the Spooktacular. The costumes are getting better every year. There are some really neat things. In the 2008 picture I am Ursula, may duaghter is riding the buckskin pony as Ariel. In the 2006 pictures same daughter is the Lion riding behind the Cheetah on the Zebra.
http://www.iaaha.com/class_b_shows.htm
sorry I meant “my daughter”!
we attended a morgan show a few years ago and saw a horse and rider in the costume class covered in purple balloons-fruit-of-the-loom grapes! way too cute and not a horse in the class spooked! glad my old gelding wasn’t in there, i’d have hit the ground for sure.
Here’s the paint mare I used to lease, Ginger, and me as a Hippogriff and Harriet Potter.
That Stacy Westfall video is one of my favorites – it’s what I aspire to with my riding – no gear at all, just me and my horse. Not sure I’ll ever get there but it’s something to work for.
Here’s the direct link to the page on her website that hosts the videos:
http://www.westfallhorsemanship.com/seeus/category/2/
And the video itself (wants to run in Media Player): http://wms17.streamhoster.com/westfall/128do.wmv
If I dressed my two up according to their natures, Easy would be a Thelwell pony, and Freckles (the crippled mare) would be Glinda the Good Witch.
As for me, I could go as a caramel apple, unfortunately. But I’m getting better!
Ruthie
omg freestyle reining at congress is also and so much fun!! some people forget that’s where stacy westfall did her bareback run in 2006. anything goes
last year there were star wars batman and rocky caped horses… a trainer at my barn did phantom of the opera, her horse had a mask and they won a lot!
When I was young my best friend’s mom was an Icelandic trainer and her horse was a little “bombproof” Icelandic gelding (he’s still going strong at 36 today and looks half his age!), so we would dress him up and go trick-or-treating at the houses in her neighborhood to get extra candy…and it worked! One year he was a pumpkin (orange polo wraps, saddle pad and we had some sort of pumpkin thing for his head) and the other year we dressed him up as santa claus (red/green polo wraps, red/white pad, santa hat and I believe we put some sort of beard on him!). We were both young in age and little in size so we would double-up bareback in a halter and we always had a blast!
I never did any of that with my gelding because we never really showed near places that had those classes but if I ever do, I think I’d make him some sort of bug…I know that’s not very original but I think if he was a bumblebee it might work since he is palomino and I could imagine those antennas! In fact when I was young my friends and I were going to have my palomino be a bee, one girl’s bay morgan a ladybug, etc…
I love the “dragon” and I LOVED Little Bo-Peep last year with her “sheep.” Cute as could be. Our dressage chapter puts on a costume class (musical freestyle) every October and this year the entire show is “costume optional.” It’s a schooling show and everyone has a GREAT time. One year a gal rode one of the lesson horses and the horse was the pirate: Hat with one side tilted up, big feather; white ruffly collar “blouse,” striped trousers on the front legs and “tall boots with cuffs.” Oh–and the horse wore a patch over one eye!
The rider was the parrot on the pirate’s “shoulders.” Sitting in the judge’s booth and watching this come toward us, both the judge and I (her scribe) were so impressed, the rider the first two movements before the we realized we were supposed to be judging her ;o) The music for this was the Hi-diddley-dee, a pirate’s life for me from Peter Pan, I think. VERY cute.
Another costume that same year was an elephant — the mare (another lesson horse) had the trunk hanging down from her real nose, and the gal had made floppy elephant ears, too. The rider was the maharani, turban wrapped around her helmet. Also very cute.
I took my horse down to that barn for his acupuncture appointment and the vet who boards there is planning HER costume — she has two horses now and is trying to figure two costumes that are “compatible” and won’t stir the horses up to the point they want to kill her ;oD
Looking forward to pictures!
Here is a costume my friend made for her Belgian, I inherited it and used it on my TWH/Perch mare….the “knight” is my neighbor…she needed a leader because she couldn’t see out of the helmet well enough to be safe.
Here is a second view of the Knight, and my daughter on her horse just clowning around…..
These pics were taken at our local club’s annual fun show….we also have costume classes in our youth show. I have seen some really good ones – Pegasus was another my friend did, she took that one to the county fair and scared the crap out of all the WP horses(not intentionally, she was just waiting in the warm-up like she was told) because when the mare walked the wings moved. I think my favorite funny one was a 4H costume “Night-mare”…..It had the horse(a mare) all dolled up in curlers, slippers and a “robe”….the girl riding was also in her PJs and slippers with a blanket pulled over her and her head on a pillow on the mare’s withers…it was a hoot. Another group in our club had a small pony they dressed as an elephant, one child rode all dolled up like a circus performer and the other was the “Ringmaster”…it was adorable! We have had Uncle Sam, Indians, Construction workers, bobby soxers….you name it….it’s so much fun to see!!
I was actually going to go trick or treat with my mare but our plans for Halloween changed. We’re going camping instead.
I was going to be an Indian Warrior and she was going to be my war steed. I have a nice costume from last year of an Indian Princess and if my skin was a little darker you could mistake me for a Navajo (once I braid my hair in two side braids). I was going to ride her bareback and paint her all the typical symbols (lightning down the front legs, hand print, horse shoes, etc) in koolaid maybe or some type of paint we would test beforehand that was safe for humans. She’s a buckskin pony who definitely fits as the Indian Pony type horse. She’s always brave but sometimes stubborn and is built like a rock.
If I were to dress my horse up for Halloween she would be a turtle or a snail or maybe even a sloth. Do you get the point that Shadow is not fond of going fast? She can though because once she dumped me in the river bottoms and streaked back to the barn and just recently she spun and took off like a bat out of hell and I chose to fall off (which is harder than you think!). Broke two ribs–maybe I should dress her up like Adam and I could be Eve.
Gidget -
You must be a QCABHA member! Gotta love the knight costume – it’s a classic!
I love Halloween and horses. I think I may do something fun with my students this year for Halloween. A few years ago one of my younger students dressed her horse up as a unicorn, and she was a fairy princess…they went Trick or Treating together. I guess she got a boatload of goodies. They were home by dark. Quite the hit of the neighborhood. The year before she was not comfortable with her horse, and when leading he would knock her down and take off. We spent from May to Sept together, and it was a very nice turn around for the both of them.
Texan, I LOVE your costume! How did you make the wings?
I don’t have a horse right now, but my plan is once I get one to enter in the costume class at our local gaited horse show at the Saddlebred Futurity they have every year in October. I am a pirate at heart, so I will wear my pirate costume and dress my horse as a parrot. Should be pretty easy–make some wings and put those colored feathers you can buy at craft stores on them, and put feathers in his mane and tail. Then a flymask or a caveson with an orange cardboard nose cover shaped like a beak. Hmm, maybe I could enter into the contest anyway with my husband’s horse….
I also love the simple idea of doing a My Little Pony–get some of that Twinkle Toes glitter and draw something on the horse’s butt, then use hair spray paint for the mane and tail. A cardboard or styrofoam “horn” attached to a browband would make a great horn!
I also really enjoyed some friends’ costumes they did for last year’s costume class at the Futurity. One was a bug man, and the horse was dressed as a fly, another was a queen riding a carousel horse–they covered the horse in gold glitter and then vaccumed it off!
The woman made the whole costume herself, including the pole for the carousel.
I also like costumes where the horse doesn’t have to be too dressed up. For example, last year’s winner of the costume contest was an entire barn where the kids dressed as the Whos in Whoville, and the trainer was the Grinch. He sat in the cart that was decorated like a sleigh, and the pony driving it was dressed as Max the dog with that single antler strapped to his head and dog ears hanging from either side of his bridle. It was SO cute!
Here’s a place that makes and sells costumes for horses: http://www.thehorsetailor.com/Costumes.html
Hopefully hasn’t been posted yet, but this is AWESOME!
Image link
Dressing my horses to fit their personalities? Then my mare would definitely go as Mae West (though she’s as sweet as all-get-out), and my gelding would go as the stereotypical tall, handsome, muscular, overall-wearing farm boy.
I once saw a child rider dressed as a bejeweled mermaid and the pony (at least I think it was a pony, since it was completely covered) was dressed as this most amazing, glittering, multicolored fish. To this day I still can’t figure out how that pony could see anything, but he didn’t take so much as one step wrong. Everyone figured the costumes were professionally done. Turned out that the child’s mother and grandmother made them. Outstanding.
I’m going on a charity trail ride on Halloween, and there’s going to be a costume class after the ride. My two friends and I are going to dress up as Indians, and we’re going to dress our horses up as Indian ponies. We have a blue-eyed black mare, a buckskin gelding, and a black and white paint pony : ]
i think i would have to dress my gelding up as hildalgo he has gelly spots i would just have to make them bigger and i think that would would be all i would have to do.it would be sooo cute. he would be very mad at me for doin this to him. he hates being painted. i’ve tryed to and he was kinda mad but hes still a baby kinda. i would love to do the hole wizrd of oz thing with him that would be realy to do too. i may just dress him up as a great dane and see how that gos
We LOVE costume class and costumes for parades. Here are two photos of one of our geldings in costume.
Babe the Blue Ox and Paul Bunyan: http://i916.photobucket.com/albums/ad6/OzTroi/2009HamiltonFair082.jpg
and as a knight and charger: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21642156@N06/2676363195/
All Im gonna say is that I want the mini-donk.
I also finally watched the reining and I did see a lot of tension, but I don’t know anything about reining, so wasn’t sure on what to say.
One has to wonder when it’s a young person competing at that level on a sensitive breed like an Arabian if at least some of that tension is not, in fact, stage fright and nerves. I have a friend who if she gets at all nervous on a horse…grabs its mouth. She’s really working hard on not doing it, but it’s not easy.
If *I* get nervous, my lower back turns into a solid, immobile pillar and my shoulders tip forward. Sigh.
I’m glad everyone’s enjoyed the pics of my kids! I designed and made all the costumes.
That’s a craft foam dragon mask, velcroed to a black sleezy on my mini. The flames are pipe cleaners hot glued to the mask.
The Ghost Rider was easy….a motorcycle mask with skull & flames on it, skeleton gloves, and flame body & head/neck sleezy and finally flame material cut to size and velcroed to black SMBs.
The Dark Rider from Lord of the Rings was the hardest. That’s cardboard armour, spray painted to look like old metal.
Forgot this:
A friend of mine had her daughter go as a pinyata (sp?): She had a white Arab, painted the legs 4 different colors, and mane & tail striped. We took all sorts of colors of crepe paper streamers and spent days cutting and hotgluing layers of crepe paper to a colorful nylon sheet so it looked like the layers on the pinyata. Once on the horse, it looked awesome. Her daughter dressed up in a poncho & sombrero and carried a baseball bat as her “whacking stick”.
Sadly i cant dress up for costume class any time soon but heres a pic of my favorite. http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b26/minskeep/Old%20Pictures/7up-1.jpg This was me when i was 8 yrs old or so. It was a little hard to balance, the dot was made of thick foam.
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