John:
We finished our weekend's homework this morning, and our plan was to head to the BA rural showground and take in some of the Nuestros Caballos show. It's a bit like the horse of the year show. Only, as you may be able to tell from the picture (more on flickr) there were no hunting pinks. We arrived just as the final of the first world Horseball (Pato) championship was getting started. We stood in the sun and watched Portugal take Argentina to a sudden death playoff which they won to the muted disappointment of the crowd. Then, after a choripan (chori=sausage pan=bread) and a beer we wandered round the BA equivalent of Olympia, it was full of stalls selling everything from, well the Pategonian equivalent of horsebrasses, to Polo equipment, to knives and workwear.

We noticed two main styles, but we don't know what they're called. One is like the picture, the hats, leather waistcoats, big leather belts and an air of working smartness. The other uses a beret and kneckerchief look that's pretty spanish. The berets are massive, they can be tugged in any direction to provide shade, some had them like flat caps (Andy Capp is a regular in the BA Herald) and some had them like... well like someone had draped a knitted merangue over their head.

After the Pato and the dressage (the key component of which seemed to be making the horse pelt along very fast and then get it to stop as quickly as possible) there was the bullock bullying. This was a contest where pairs of gauchos would have to use their horses to guide a bullock running at full tilt (or stopping dead if it was a cunning bullock) the length of the stadium. Some absolutely fantastic horsemanship on display.
  ¶ 12:26 AM