Musings on the Fair

The following is not to bad mouth the IL Horse Fair, in the past this fair has drawn thousands and tens of thousands of people all interested in seeing the different breeds of horses and the opportunity to watch and learn from many different clinicians. This year was actually a disaster from the time we tried to make sure we were entered until the time we left the fair. We had to ask where to send the entry fee, no release forms were given to us until we emailed numerous people asking for them. Upon arriving we were given our stall assignments, decorated them only to have someone come a day later to explain we were given the wrong stalls. Luckily the lady who's stall we were given was more than willing to share our feed stall instead of making us take down decorations and move Ribbon. There was a program but the schedules on the program meant nothing. We were given our performance times but that actually meant nothing either.  At times the horses were all tacked up with their fancy costumes the riders mounted only to be told minutes before entering the coliseum to go back to the stall and wait for a couple of hours. Trying to let people know when we were performing was a nightmare. There were people driving down from Peoria and the surrounding communities that wanted to watch the Horsemeister Friesians and the Horsemeister Pirates but each time they were sent a text with the time, that time slot would change. There were not very many different breeds of horses, mostly stock, paint or gaited, come to find out the owners of the different breeds were not contacted in time to enter the fair. We were missing the Andalusians, Fjords, Haflingers, Paso Finos, Thoroughbreds, Clydesdale  Bashker Curleys, Saddlebreds, Tennessee Walkers, plus many others. The fair was under new management and change was to be expected but surly someone would know to invite the owners of the horses to a horse fair! In the past each year the winner of the breed and sport demo would receive a free entry fee for the next year horse fair but this year we won and got a ribbon, a piece of paper stating we were the winner and 2 small boxes of electrolites (which we have never needed to use).  That sounds like sour grapes on our part, it looks like we weren't grateful to win.  Even with all of the problems, there was much to be thankful for. Our boys got lots of experience riding around the fairgrounds with other horses even mares in season and didn't put a hoof wrong. They performed flawlessly even though there wasn't a crowd to perform in front of. Ribbon did exceptionally well for the vaulters. I'll be working on the videos today, the Saturday Friesian performance is now up, it can be watched in high definition if desired. When the rest of the videos are finished and published they will be uploaded, check out the audience, or lack of audience in the Sunday performance.