The Pinkie Chronicles: Pinkie Loses Hat Both Shows.

Pinkie lost his cowboy hat in both shows tonight. In the first, it came off as he was crossing to the Gold Star Ranch during my introduction of the Rough Riders, landing at the edge of the arena in front of Gold Star - an innocent enough error, but because the hat was Pinkie's, it became a target.

Most horses will notice something out of the ordinary like Pinkie's hat on the ground and will prick their ears at it, maybe snort, usually making an effort at least to avoid stepping on it. When I rode near it to get out of Annie Oakley's way so she could shoot the candles of the candelabra, for example, my horse lurched sideways enough to elicit a hearty laugh from the line of cowboys.

Annie's horse is not at all like my horse. Her horse took absolutely no notice of the hat, enabling Annie to subtly but intentionally aim her horse to nail Pinkie's hat perfectly, stomping it and kicking it forward several yards, eliciting an even bigger laugh from the cowboy line-up. The scene continued until, as Annie circled for her exit, I subtly said over the microphone, mainly for the cowboy's benefit, "one more chance". Annie bowled into Pinkie's hat again, sending it forward another few yards.

The cowboys' exit punished Pinkie's hat further, but it stayed on stage. Later, when the Chuckwagons entered for the Cattle Trail scene, Chad was able to run his team and both right hand chuckwagon wheels directly over Pinkie's hat. It's a small thing, losing a hat, but it provided ample entertainment for the cowboys.

In the second show, Pinkie beat Brice's roping time by 0.3 seconds, winning it for Gold Star. Brice feined fury over the call. It might have ended there had it not been Pinkie. When Annie handed the winner's flag to Pinkie and Pinkie started the winning round, Brice galloped after him, grabbing and wrestling with him as they circled. Pinkie tried in vain to fight Brice off, but with one hand on his reins and the other carrying the flag, his only defense was to try to awkwardly hit Brice with the flag. Not only did this appear awkward and endearingly pathetic, it utterly failed to deter Brice and resulted only in Pinkie's own hat being knocked off in front of Gold Star.