Illinois Horse Fair FRIDAY

Karin, Rhoda, Amy and I headed down to the lobby at 6:00 am for coffee and breakfast. Sarah and Nolan met us there. After a good breakfast we were on our way to the fairgrounds to feed and water the horses. While Karin, Rhoda, Amy and Sarah tacked up, Nolan fed, watered and I cleaned stalls. We were at the livestock arena for practice just before 7:30 am..a RECORD. We have never had 9 horses tacked up and down ready for practice that early. Below are a few pictures of the practice.

 Sarah held the horses in the middle while Amy, Nolan, Karin and Rhoda rode them one at a time. Below is Amy on Anna.

 Sarah is in the middle of those horses, we just can't see her.

 Below Karin is riding Indy

 Amy is on Anna and Rhoda is riding Rosalie

 Below Rhoda is riding Ayanna

 Rhoda asking Ayanna for a bow. The arena was getting busy with lots of other riders so we took ours out.

 We had lots of visitors, below is our guard for the cave of wonders and a little girl who was brave enough to stand next to him for a picture.

 WE had lots of visitors at the stalls today going through almost 50 pounds of popcorn. Our stalls were very popular.

 Below is a happy pirate that came to visit.

To see the rest of the pictures of a few of our many visitors CLICK HERE.
We shut the pop corn machine down at 1:15 pm so we could go watch the trick riders. Becca Watson, one of our vaulters from years past has now graduated and become an amazing trick rider.

To see the rest of the trick riding pictures CLICK HERE. We had a good performance with a surprise ending. That is a surprise to US. More on that later too. We were tired and hungry by the time we made it back to the hotel. Ate a quick supper, swam with the grand children, enjoyed the hot tub then came up to work a bit before heading to bed. Tomorrow morning hopefully I have a little more time.