Every April, for as many years as I can remember, I've look forward to attending Midwest Horse Fair. For some odd reason, this year I could have skipped the whole thing. Neither one of us were into it, at all. All the things we have loved about Fair in the past, are still part of it. Good clinicians, shopping, visiting with other horse people, seeing friends, the rodeo etc. We pre-bought our usual three day pass, and only ended up going one day. I think our mind is elsewhere.
Clint Anderson was presenting this year, as was Al Dunning and a few other big names. We've seen these two in the past, and don't particularly care for either. We did briefly attend two of Butch Campbells Ranch Riding clinics. It was very noticeable that he didn't have his AQHA judge wife with him. She was the one who did the explaining why (aka teaching) last year. His clinics were not remotely informational to watch this year. You can only learn so much from seeing people ride around in circles. It wasn't just us, we heard others felt similar. We didn't bother going back to see his clinic series, the remaining two days.
I am in a bit of disbelief that we didn't even walk through the horse barns. I heard there were only a few Quarter Horse stallions & no QH breed demo.
We did get some good deals at Fair on needed horse/barn supplies: Nemo's annual supply of Horseshoers Secret, a large gallon of bug spray, some red flat back buckets (our double stall will not have auto-waterers) and a couple more forks. We found an unexpected deal on poly-wire fencing ($40 off a roll!!!) and lined up our Ritchie Waterer purchase with a show discount. We had a hard time deciding between one or two water openings. I picked our waterer up last weekend from a local vendor.
Check out this new hay bag on the market, called Orange Slow Feeder. We've looked at Hay Chix products for years, and just weren't convinced. Last show season Cierra used one of our trainers new small Chix bags, and it didn't hold up worth a damn. We think these folks came up with a better bag & system. Brad will be trying out their small bag this show season. We may end up getting larger bale versions for our place. Time will tell.
Friday night Rodeo was pretty good, altho the cowboys/girls didn't do so hot this year. I got a few decent bucking shots, but haven't processed them. Thankfully they featured a couple new acts. Click to enlarge for best viewing.
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| Jesse Peters |
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| Rodeo Pickup Man |
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| Madison McDonald |
It seems every weekend there is some major thing going on that was planned/purchased before we knew we would be moving in Spring. It's a busy time of year for everyone, especially horse/land owners. Will try to check in and get a barn update posted one of these days. Still tons (and tons) of work needs to be done, especially for the horses. The next few weeks we will be knee deep into moving...I will be SO happy when it's over. Moving will be over someday, right?!!
