Horsing Around

Peasants do not have that much opportunities to get up close and personal with noble knights and their even more noble and precious stallions. Sure, they can sometimes see them at jousting matches, if they managed to get a good line of view from the giant crowd of other spectators, they can see them in battles - hopefully not charging against them but who knows what kid of horrors do poor soldiers have to face in these trying times - or they can see them in paintings and murals on the walls of magnificent castles should they have the opportunity to venture in for work or trade or other related issues. But most of the time, the world of the nobles and the world of the commoners are firmly separated.
Horsing Around is an annual competition of making the most extravagant, colourful, elaborate and overall the prettiest outfits for the best horses in the land. And most importantly - anyone can participate. All a person needs is a bunch of fabrics, sometimes paints, sometimes threads and ribbons, a lot of the times seasonal flowers, berries or other plants from the harvest - anything maluable and interesting enough to be somehow included into the horse fashion industry, but hopefully not tasty enough for the models to eat before the parade concludes.
This creative competition is a part of the end of the jousting season and kicks off the harvest celebrations on the island. There is no firm date, but it usually happens two weeks after the last big tournament of the season. The king will then announce the date of the Honourable parade, which usually follows the royal court out of the place of the last tournament to the capital, or from the capital into the Highcastle. In the morning there will be a show of all the submission in the market square where nobles can pick their favourites. The authors of the winning horse outfits have usually opportunity to score an employment at that particular noble and follow them into the royal destination, or, most often, they get their reward in gold.