Saturday at the IL Horse Fair

We left for the fairgrounds around 7:30 am and were pretty thrilled to get our usual parking place. The horses heard us talking as we turned the corner in the barn and started calling for breakfast. Shaeya, Ariya, Karin and I went right to work feeding and watering and had that done in just a few minutes. Karin was really pleased that Ariya and Shaeya came today to help warm up the mares. We walked all 7 down to the outside warm up arena.

 The mares were taken back and Valiant warmed up in that same arena then taken to the covered arena for the liberty part of the stallion class.

 He did awesome today for Shaeya. Rebekah rode him in the riding class and again he was practically perfect.

 He really is an amazingly sweet stallion who tries hard to please his handler.  Sarah, Nolan and Zion arrived and Zion got to play with a mini Gypsy stallion..

 

The horses had many visitors today.

 Joan was making cotton candy and just couldn't keep up with the demand. Diane and Amy were taking turns making the popcorn and they too were swamped with people wanting popcorn. We went through the first 50 pound bag and 2 full gallons of oil today.

At 3:00 pm Karin had everyone get into costume for a practice before riding down to the livestock arena.

 We were disappointed that the crowds didn't come down to that arena to watch. Most of the other horse activities were happening at the other end of the fairgrounds. The horses were all well behaved and the play went off without any problems on our end.

 Amy and Ken had filled all the water buckets and put hay in each of the stalls so when the play was over we just had to tidy up before heading to the hotel. Below Elisabet is standing with her two new friends. She was actually fascinated by Sam's lion costume.

We had a good dinner then sat in the hot tub. Karin is already sound asleep and I will be soon. We are exhausted.