A Snowy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! It gave us an excuse to finally have Clara wear the green pants and beanie from the free Celtic set, which haven't seen the light of day before, ha ha. Not only has Clara been riding Snowy today, but it's also snowed a bit here in real life. 

Snowsecret has been getting quite the workout. He's seen most of Jorvik now, including this especially pretty spot on Paddock Island. 

He soared through his experience levels and celebrated each with his trademark levade.

 

Fittingly, he reached his max experience level this weekend: the final weekend of winter. (Vacation over, other horses! Everybody's back in the rotation.)

Some of our questing brought Clara by bus into Jorvik City, where horses can't go. We don't generally plan this ahead of time, hence Clara shows up still in full riding gear. We've discovered that while horses are not allowed, pets are. Here's Icy the fox making her way up the escalator at the mall, ha ha.

Another quest had Clara trying to help a couple get their couch into their upstairs apartment. All efforts failed, so they gave up and gave Clara the couch. It's now sitting pointlessly in our inventory. Hopefully someday it will be of use.

Clara hung out with Alex to help her record an audio tour of some noteworthy sites in the city. We found this one the most entertaining.

I know I've said it before, but I'm so glad it's Alex and Linda we are getting to know first. Maybe the other two currently missing soul riders, Lisa and Anne, won't be as annoying as they seem, but I'm not holding my breath.

Oh, so that's what she looks like without a helmet. We'd almost forgotten. XD

We worked up the nerve to finally go through the gates to Scarecrow Hill. (Linda did not come with us. Smart girl.) Then, we were promptly caught by one of the beings on brooms (turns out they're scarecrows, not witches) and dumped back outside the gates. Anticlimactic. 

So, off we galloped, Linda looking like she could slip off Snowy's rump the whole way.

We dropped her off at Silverglade's library and then galloped out to Valedale to talk to Elizabeth.

We did dig up 3 helpful book passages. Sounds like we're going to need 4 keys to get into that tomb, and I'm sure they won't be easy to find. Until next time...

In other less epic news, Star Stable introduced a new horse breed this week, the Selle Francais. All of them are quite good looking, but of course I'm most drawn to the two pintos.

Maybe they'll grow on me, but I'm still partial to the other recently-added warmblood breed, the Dutch Warmblood. The Selles spend a lot of time with their ears back while idling and do a lot of head tossing, whereas the Dutchies seem more happy and chill. I especially like the dapple gray one below.

Along with the release of the Selle Francais came a limited-time show jumping competition with new, more realistic rules. Penalties are added for knocked poles, refusals, hooves touching water in water jumps, and going over the allotted time.

I remember back when we started playing Star Stable, it came as a surprise to us that hitting jumps did not affect the end result, since it does on other horsey games we've played. So, it's not earth-shattering they want to implement realistic rules, and we'll roll with it if need be. We were also fine with it the way it was. The flashes of red and sounds of the jumps being hit were enough motivation for us to try to improve. Interestingly, the first time we tried out the new course, we jumped it totally clear. We haven't been able to do that since: always hit at least one bar. Oh well, we'll keep trying!