Midwest Horse Fair!

I spent all day today at the Midwest Horse Fair in Madison. What a horse-lover's paradise! They had absolutely everything you can imagine. There were vendors selling everything from stalls to manure spreaders to tack to strange supplements to ridiculous costumes to horses. There were clinicians there speaking on all manner of things from how to fit a saddle to how to train your horse to lie down. There was even some minister-type who was giving a church service of some sort from horseback! (when I went past the arena she was saying something about William Wallace and there were a lot of people on their feet, yelling "amen" and clapping. Quite different.) Representatives were present from many breeds, and there were some great demonstrations put on. As per usual, both camera and computer are on the fritz, so I was only able to take some video. And this thing is being temperamental about uploading the videos, so we'll see how many actually get up.

First off is Santiago, a fabulously beautiful Andalusian stallion. He was amazing! Interesting fact: the rider is the lead trainer at Medieval Times in Chicago.

Next are the adorable Icelandics! They had a very fun demo, complete with the famous beer tolt where they tolt around with the riders holding full mugs of beer to show off how smooth they are to ride! The first video shows the opening of their program and the second shows them all tolting abreast. How fun!



Fourth is the impressive Budweiser Clydesdales. These guys were most impressive! I was sitting right by the rail, so I got the full effect! The video stops right before the announcer informed us that the tack for each horse costs about $80,000. Let's see...$80K x 8 horses x however many travelling teams there are....wow!


And last for the moment is another impressive demo. Not to be outdone by the Budweiser Clydes that performed right before him, the Priefert sponsored "Texas Thunder" Percheron team entered the ring...without their cart! Their driver brought them in, riding roman! Yes, roman riding on 6 horses! They aren't even tied together!

I'll post some more video tomorrow. Anyone who knows me knows that I would have been drooling over the Friesians. Yes, I have a lot of video of them, so stay tuned!