The Morgan Show.......... the Culprit and His Antics......

Part 1

I left this still angry exhibitor telling her if she saw the man again to let me know. Since she'd already told me about her attempts trying to track his activities on the grounds, I figured it would be better for her to keep me informed. That way if he did return to the grounds I might be able to intercept him before something unfortunate happened.

Back in the show office it wasn't long before that "second personality" of the show emerged again. This time he claimed he was being stalked by some crazy woman on the grounds. Immediately the pieces fell in place for me as I remembered seeing him walking towards me as I'd left from inspecting the offending vehicle. This man was the "speeder" the exhibitor was so angry about.

I proceeded to tell him of her complaints. Of course, he denied them. He claimed he knew all about horses and he would never drive too fast around them and he had never spoken to her in such terms.

The "he said, she said" aspects of this situation were exactly what I'd expected. Still there was the issue of the parking permit. He didn't have one and he was not allowed to park on the grounds. I gave him the rundown on that along with appropriate places for him to park.

The whole time I could tell he was trying to impress me. Smoozing is not something I buy into easily. I'm normally aware of it instantly and it tends to put me on guard..........not at ease. If this guy thought he was gaining my confidence, he was sure off base.

All of a sudden he moved in from behind the counter and offered me his hand, introducing himself. To be honest my first reaction was to back up and flee. Instead I reached out and shook his hand with thoughts of washing as quickly as possible running through my brain.

I don't know why I had this extreme reaction although there was a strong odor about the man. The show secretary thought it was booze. To me I smelled something clingy and sweet like maybe marijuana? Whatever it was between the smell, his appearance and his actions every part of my being said I needed to watch this guy.

I guess this is as good a place as any to describe what this man looked like to me. He was white, ruddish maybe sunburned complexion, medium build. More specifically I saw an aging beach bum, like maybe even the look of the Beach Boys themselves only rougher. His hair was reddish and cut in kind of a bowl cut like maybe Moo from the Three Stooges and it was very very fried. The dryness of his hair caused it to stick out evenly all around in a odd windblown fashion. He had sunglasses propped up on top of his head. He was dressed like a player right down to his gold bracelet, trying to be suave but his demeanor and actions offset the effectiveness of this persona. Like I said, touching his hand made me want to wash........

Coming back into the office later, I saw this man at the outside corner at one of the vendor's booths. At first I thought he was shopping but then I realized he seemed to be there with that vendor. With that information I was able to find out more information. The vendor, herself, was an employee of one of the people on the show committee.

From there I was able to talk to that committee member and get more information about this man and something of a handle on how to deal with him. Before he was gone from my hair altogether, however, it turned out he drove two more vehicles on the grounds.

The first one turned out to be the vehicle of the vendor. He backed it all the way from where it was parked down near the warm-up arena to the door near the vendor's booth. AND the backing was way too fast for my liking. It was obvious this man had no idea what was appropriate driving anywhere near horses.

Not long after he backed this vehicle, he drove his vehicle onto the grounds as well. It turned out the vendor needed both vehicles to load all of her wares into. She was packing up, going home and she would not be returning the following day.

Still there was the issue of this guy's speed while driving on the grounds. The show committee person talked to her employee about keeping this guy in check. When they drove off the grounds, her vehicle was in front with her creeping along at an appropriate speed and his was safely right behind her keeping his speed manageable as well.

Only after the fact did I find out about the other issues with this man. He had been going up to exhibitors and their horses touching the horses without permission and even telling people something was wrong with their horses. One person from the show committee had been told the horse had something wrong with his legs.

If that wasn't enough he'd also spent some time on the far side of the arena. He'd stood behind the patron banners and then popped out between them on the rail scaring horses in the ring. Even the judge had noticed his odd behavior. No one, not even the judge, had thought to let me know this weirdo was terrorizing horses in the ring.

I sure hoped we wouldn't see anymore of this guy. In all my years of showing horses I've never seen an adult reek such havoc at a horse show. Scaring horses on the rail is usually reserved to preschoolers who don't know any better. What in the heck was this guy thinking??

To be continued............