(“I like victory gallops with the phases run the old fashioned way. “)

Okay, I admit it—most of my “favorite things” are the same things that everybody else likes. I mean you got your “brown paper packages,” “your warm woolen mittens.” Who can argue about them?
I also like things which are created for their intrinsic value and then enter the marketplace. They beat junk every time whose design is over focus–grouped and then hyped without remorse to manufacture an otherwise nonexistent demand.

I like freestyles that are built the old fashioned way—not drawing a pattern and filling in notes to match it but taking a coherent piece of music and actually doing choreography.

As a judge I like being able to wish a competitor luck as they pass by my box at C or to have six words of meaningless small talk as I wait at the snack bar. What kind of craziness thinks my integrity could be compromised if I say an unsupervised hello to someone on my way to the restroom?

At horse trials I like victory gallops with the phases run the old fashioned way with show jumping last and done in reverse order of placing. It sure beats waiting around the scoreboard for the results to be posted.

I like riders who are neatly turned out without patent leather boot tops or pastel piping on their coats and breeches. I like formal attire to be a glitter-free zone.

And I like Harmony. More than flash, more than splash, more than extravagance—I like when a horse and rider are absolutely one. That’s my most favorite of things.