The livestock are rotated in and out, so if you go early in the fair, you may see one type of animal, and then if you go back another day, you will see different animals. There are horses at the fair the entire time, but early in the week there are 4H horses, later it's open show horses, and finally, draft horses.
So yesterday we went to see the llamas and the meat goats. And the draft horses, my favorite. We talked to a lot of people, and even went into the stall with "Big John" a huge Belgian. His back was higher than B's head (B is 6' tall). I would give my right arm to have a Clydesdale, and we also saw plenty of them.
Speaking of Clydesdales, they won the 6 horse hitch class! If you have never seen a driving class, you have got to see one. Let me tell you, they were turning people away at the Pioneer Livestock Pavilion, because horse people and non-horse people love to watch this show (more on that later). The pavilion can seat 2000!
Like most of the horse shows, the draft show involved the horse(s) making several passes around the arena at various gaits (trot and walk, in this case), reversing, and then parking in the center, and backing up. All of the entries were stunning, but imagine the impact of the 7 6-horse hitches! There is not enough room in the arena to have them inside all at once, so they break the class into sections. They have them do their thing, and then park them in the middle, but at judging time they park them all in the middle. There were 35 draft horses and their wagons in the arena at once!
I am definitely a novice at driving, but I have done it enough to know that it is not as easy as it looks! And to see those big, gentle giants roaring around was just amazing! We enjoyed every minute of it (the show was 5 hours long!), and can't wait for next year.
I mentioned that there were non-horse folks in attendance. I am glad that the sport is popular with many different people, but I had to shake my head when the first team roared around and the lady behind me remarked how they "stank." Okay, let me just tell you a couple of things:
1) They did not stink. It was the smell of leather cleaner and silver polish from the harnesses. Those horses were polished up and shined slicker than a kid on Sunday morning for church! We did it with Major on Wednesday, they did the same thing with their horses yesterday.
2) You are at a livestock show. If they did, in fact, stink, wouldn't that be acceptable?
3) THEY DID NOT STINK!
Here are some pictures I took. Click on the picture to view a slideshow. Also, forgive me for the quality, I took them with my cell phone camera.
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