7 Ridiculous Moments from the HITM Radiothon Nations Hour

You can count on us to crash a party.

Which is pretty much what happened when Eventing Nation/Horse Nation took over the final hour of Horse Radio Network’s epic 12-hour holiday radiothon on Monday evening.

Between Nation hosts Jenni Autry and Leslie Wylie, HRN emcees Glenn the Geek and Dr. Wendy Ying, and celebrity guests Boyd Martin, Lainey Ashker and Dom and Jimmie Schramm, it was a ridiculously merry grand finale to a long, fun, star-studded day.

Prizes were given (you can check out a list of the winners here), the virtual wassail was passed around, and Christmas memories ranging from heartwarming to humiliating were shared. You can listen to any of the Radiothon’s 12 hours here…

…or skip straight to the Nations hour by clicking here.

A small sampling of the hilarity that ensued with Jenni, Leslie and friends at the wheel:

1. Broken childhood Christmas dreams  (9:08)

Leslie: “For the first 10 maybe 11 years of my life Christmas was always a traumatic, emotionally devastating event. Because all I wanted was a horse. A pony. Like, whatever. Something with four legs I could ride around in circles. That was all I wanted. And every year I was just in tears because I did not get the horse. I didn’t understand why Santa hated me, what I did so wrong to deserve nothing resembling a live horse for Christmas. I guess that’s pretty bratty.”

2. Breaking the internet (13:44)

Call-in listener/EN writer David Taylor: “Leave it to the eventers to break the Internet.”

Jenni: “That’s what we do. That’s par for the course around here.”

Leslie: “Totally on purpose.”

Glenn: “I remember the first time that EN crashed and you guys were like me today when we crashed these servers, you were so excited. When you do that the first time it’s so exciting and terrifying at the same time.”

Jenni: “And then every year after that you’d expect us to get our act together, and we somehow never do.”

Leslie: “It’s a Rolex tradition.”

Jenni: “It is a Rolex tradition, absolutely. People have expectations now.”

3. Eventers are not like normal people (13:15)

Wendy: “Oh my god. You can’t put all these eventers together at once. It’s dangerous. They’re not like normal horse people, Glenn. They’re wild.”

4: Boyd’s first Christmas with Silva’s family (20:54)

Boyd: “Basically in Australia you wear a Hawaiian shirt or a T-shirt and a pair of board shorts and Christmas was a pretty relaxing day with your family. I met Silva and went to Germany for Christmas and I would have thought the Germans had the same sort of protocol when it comes to Christmas.

“I had a really, really cool button-up shirt, like a Hawaiian type shirt, with a really, really nice rooster on the chest of it. And so I was meeting Silva’s family for the first time and I was staying in the basement, and I walked upstairs and everyone was in a shirt and tie, her dad was in a proper suit, and I walk into the room with this big rooster on my shirt. The whole room went silent and it was so weird. And Silva’s sister said in German to Silva, ‘Nice rooster.’

“So German Christmas and Australian Christmas are quite different.”

5. Dom’s first Christmas with Jimmie’s family (36:13)

Jimmie: “Every year for Christmas my sweet mom buys everybody pajamas to wear Christmas morning. Our Christmas morning it’s like we’re 10 — we close our eyes and come into the room and go to our pile of presents and we all like to wear our matching pajamas.”

Dom: “You’re going to pay for this, Jimmie.”

Jimmie: “So this is Dom’s first Christmas in the U.S. and first Christmas with my family so it was kind of a big deal, and I have a big family. My mom has put both sets of pajamas, mine and his, in Dom’s room— we were sleeping in different rooms, it was before we were married— so we wake up and we’re all rushing in, and here comes Dom walking in.

“He’s got on a pair of flannel pajama pants with reindeer all over them and a top that was skin-tight fleece, and it had this like scoop neck, like really low scoop neck, and my whole family was like, “Um, what are you wearing?” And he says, “These are the pajamas that Mrs. Holotik gave me to wear.” And my mom was like, “Those are the wrong ones! Those aren’t the right ones! Those are Jimmie’s pajamas!”

Dom: “I mean, just imagine my confusion. I thought … they grossly underestimated my size …”

Glenn: “But were there any roosters on them?”

6. Broken Christmas bones (47:42)

Laine: “Most of the time my holiday season is spent injured or in a hospital. Last year, I was in a hospital.”

Jenni: “You really have made a tradition of it.”

Laine: “Absolutely. If I’m going to get hurt, it’s a perfect time to do it.”

7. Picking the winner of the $1,000 prize giveaway (50:06)

Jenni: “Can Lainey pick the winner?”

Lainey: “Can I have the prizes?”

Many thanks to Horse Radio Network for letting us be a part of their fun holiday event! Visit the website to view their full roster of shows.

Go Riding!