This past weekend, I got the opportunity to help run a horse show. There hadn't been a Western show at the Fall Fair for about 15 years, so you can imagine I was pretty excited about the four Western classes being offered this year! The classes were a good representation of our skills: Western Pleasure, Western Horsemanship, Command, and Trail. I volunteered to help out, wanting to do my part to make it a success. The brave woman running the show wasn't familiar with Western classes, and put me in charge of the patterns for the Horsemanship and Trail classes. Three of us sat down for a meeting earlier in the week and figured out what had to be done.
There is a lot of work involved. I've been told the show looked good and smooth, which is great, because many times I found myself standing in the ring with a clipboard in my hands, looking around frantically, trying to remember where I put a thing I needed or who I needed to talk to or what I needed to do!
The western classes started at 2:00 pm, which gave me all morning to shuffle paperwork at the entry desk. Then I got the ring ready for the classes. I was not the judge, and man, honestly, I got a first hand look at how difficult judging is! I have much respect for our judge who was fair and knowledgeable. She did a great job and was very pleasant about the whole thing. I enjoyed working with her!
We had a good turnout, about six entries in each class. I was vaguely aware of spectators lined up to watch, which is wonderful! The more interest in these classes, the better our chances of another Western show next year. The Fall Fair is always a highlight of the year in an agricultural based community like New Hamburg. People who live in town and wouldn't always have chances to see farm animals can come out and observe the 4H calf shows, and of course, all the horse shows! There are always draft horses (I did not get to see any of those magnificent gentle giants because I was too busy!) and the hunter-jumper shows. And now, Western classes too, which I'm proud to share and promote!
To all of you who stopped by the fair to watch the show, THANK YOU! We'll work on getting you some bleachers to sit on next year, ok?
If you were there with your horse, THANK YOU! We got some very nice horse and rider teams. It made judging harder, but that's a good problem to have!
I had a great time and fully intend to be involved in 2014. (I wonder if I can run a show and bring two horses at the same time...)
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