It was good to get to visit Kearney this past Saturday. It was very likely a bit foolish in that I was still recovering from my cold, but getting to watch the Medieval Madness tour season finale Saturday afternoon, but in the end I probably could have stayed at home just as well. But I did get to listed to 7 hours of my book that I’ve been listening to at least.

Azure Cross was jousting at Kearney - which was a bit of a surprise. I’d thought that the expense of their insurance was too prohibitive to be able to support them for doing just one joust this year. But in the end they were there, and it was with mixed emotions that I watched them prep for their one joust of the day. It was Cliff jousting along with some other fellow that I’d not seen before, and then two others also riding in the games. The games went uneventfully, and the moderate audience applauded politely. When it came time for the actual joust to begin, they wont down for their first pass and was a glancing no break pass. When the new rider got to the end of the list and pulled up to slow and turn, the saddle slipped and twisted almost 90 degrees around the horse and he took a rather nasty fall and dislocated his shoulder. Given that Pappy was yelling across the field that the wrong saddle had been used/who’d been responsible for it, while the medics were still checking on the other rider, I’d noticed that the joust was done when they began taking of the main armor pieces of the fallen Knight.

So as a note to myself, I should make sure that I always throw into the jousting contracts that if there’s only two jousters to be riding, that there’s a third on hand in case of an injury. It’s just too easy for one person to get hurt, and then your big ticket show is just thrown out the window. Apparently they were able to have Daniel ride on Sunday as a replacement, but still that’s also a position you don’t want to have to be in - putting someone on a horse that’s not yet ready. It’d be about like putting me on a horse and having me joust. I could do the games with no notice if I at least knew the horse or could get some practice runs on it, but jousting? that’d just be silly.