The Iowa Horse Fair

Last weekend Cat made her debut at the Iowa Horse Fair in one of the Iowa Trail Riding Equestrian Challenges demos.  I wasn't able to get her down to the fairgrounds until late Friday night.  When we arrived there was a firetruck and ambulance blocking the road.  I was told they were locking the barn so I unloaded her and walked her past the firetruck and ambulance to the barn.  I later realized they were locking the vendor area and not the horse area.  She quickly settled in so I went home for the night.

Happily munching away

I headed in fairly early on Saturday morning and met Brandon at the barn.  I could tell Cat wanted out of her stall so I took her for a walk looking for a place to exercise her a bit.  The pavilion was open, but there were so many riders in there I opted not to go in.

When I returned her to her stall she got nervous.  By then the hustle and bustle of the horse fair had started and people and ponies were both going by.  She started her stall popping which didn't go over well with me (this is something she learned to do at Janet's house that I have yet been able to fix).  I decided to saddle her up and look for a place to ride.

Horse Thief!

After walking around for a while I finally found the warm up arena and was able to go for a ride.  Jesse Munk was there (he put the first ride on Duke) riding a young horse with a huge smile on his face.  I swear he has to be the nicest man I have ever met.  I rode Cat around for a little bit and then hopped off to chat with a friend.  She was there with her daughter to help out with the mounted shooting.  Cat was a little jumpy when they started shooting but quickly calmed down.  I hopped back on and rode around a bit more before heading back to the barn.

For the demo I rode intermediate.  With her back leg still being a bit sore and this being her first time in a venue like this I didn't want to canter.  When I entered the arena with the obstacles Cat's head immediately lowered, she let out a huge sigh and immediately relaxed.  I don't know what it is about obstacles but they almost flip a switch in her little brain that says "relax!".

She was awesome for the demo!  Not perfect by any means but she rocked!  It was so nice having people come up to me afterwards to tell me what a good job we did.

She seemed to relax and settle in after the demo so the we left to look for some "great buys".

On Sunday Chase went in with me and decided he wanted to lead Cat around to stretch her legs.  I can't even begin to tell you how happy it made me to see him wanting to do something with the horses again.

Love these two!

We weren't in any demos on Sunday, but we weren't allowed to leave until 5.  I decided to take the opportunity to ride her in the warm up arena next to the mounted shooters again.  On Sunday they had some of the top riders riding so the "pops" came a little more frequently.  She did very well.  Some of the queen contestants tried to bring their horses up to warm up and quickly left as their horses got riled up by the shooting.

On the way back to the barn she was mauled by some small kids.  Watching her extend her head down into their hands just melted my heart.  She was so eager to let those little ones do whatever they  wanted to her.

While I'm not sure I'd want to do the Horse Fair every year, it was sure nice to see how Cat would react in a venue like it.