July 23, Gaited Horse Fun Show

A while back, Heather and I talked about how nice it would be to have a couple of extra shows to go to during the year, making all our practice efforts more worthwhile, and spreading the show stress over four events, rather than two, thus hopefully decreasing it. We also talked about the difficulties involved in finding somebody willing and able enough to organize all these extra shows, sighed knowingly and changed the subject.

And then I saw the ad for the Gaited Horse Fun Show organized by the Central CanadaPaso Fino Horse Association. Actually, what jumped at me first, were the words ‘gaited show’ and ‘open classes’. That meant getting hooked up with another gaited horse group, and somewhere to go outside of our two annual shows. Now, I have always thought of Paso Finos and their riders as very elegant and sophisticated, and – pride or no pride – my fuzzy pony, let alone myself, does not really fall into the elegant or sophisticated category. But it did say ‘open classes’, so I decided to throw caution into the wind. And yes, I have to admit, the idea of bringing raucous blue collar charm to a stuffy white collar party may have played into this as well – at least in the beginning. Because, as soon as I got in touch with the organizer to ask for more information, I received a friendly and enthusiastic reply; Camilla seemed genuinely thrilled to have Icelandics join in the fun, and invited me to bring all my friends.

I sent an e-mail to all Icelandic riders at Six Gables, inviting them to join me at the show: a herd makes more of an impression than an individual and, yes, there is strength in numbers when you are going somewhere unfamiliar and scary. Not that I was nervous or anything. Response to participate was slow, but almost everybody committed to come out and watch. Great, that really helped with my level of (non-existing) nervousness.

Judy being Judy not only generously offered me her trailer, but five minutes later decided to come along: double the fun, half the stress, perfect solution!

July 23rd was predicted to be a nice cool day, but beyond that it might have been anything from clear blue skies to severe thunderstorms. We headed for Teen Ranch, just south of Orangeville, a huge multipurpose facility with enough space to house three or four major events at the same time. It was a great venue: we had our own parking lot, a beautiful large ring without any dust, nice grassy areas around it, and several smaller sections to warm up in. A snack bar would have made it perfect, but you can’t have everything, and we knew ahead of time that it would be a picnic outing. The day turned out to be beautiful with moderate temperatures and a few short showers that bothered nobody, while we heard thunder all around us rolling towards the city.

Besides Judy and me, Lisa and Sam Dickson had brought their Icelandic mare Blida. Most of the horses were Paso Finos of course, but there was also one Rocky Mountain and one gaited mule. Razzamatazz, the mule, was hilarious and absolutely stole the show by commenting loudly on anything and everything going on around him, and being a cross with a Tennessee Walker, he towered over everybody else and could be seen and heard everywhere.

Judy and I had set up a little paddock for our horses, which they very much appreciated since it meant they could eat all day, and which made it quite easy to find us. People around us were very kind in coming up to our horses and asking lots of questions. These were all Paso enthusiasts, and they still showed interest in our horses, as we did in theirs. And yes, Menja’s mane and tail did draw attention from far and near, as – strangely - was the fact that most people had thought that Icelandics were a lot smaller. Heather came out as promised to watch and help, as well as Carole and John, MJ, Jan and John from Six Gables, and even Lois who had to sneak away from her own birthday party. Wendy and Sidney Horas had managed to make time for the show, and Sidney desperately wanted to ride, but unfortunately they had not been able to get a trailer organized in time.

There were lots and lots of classes, all ‘serious’ stuff in the morning, games in the afternoon. Out of the over 30 classes, about 6 were Pasos only, some were youth classes, the rest open to everybody. Both Judy and I dislike standing around for hours, so we both thought it made more sense to enter in as many classes as possible. We were in the 2 gait, the 3 gait, a class for old(er) fogies, a musical hat game, keyhole race, a Simon Says class and a champagne ride. I told you how I thought this group was very sophisticated… until they got the ‘champagne’ out of a horse water trough. I could not even drink the top inch off to cut down on spillage.

There was an egg race: a raw egg on a teeny tiny spoon, and I on a horse that isn’t all that smooth, while Pasos can do this barely moving version of toelt that has got to give them an advantage. At least that’s the story I am sticking to. Eggs were flying before we even entered the ring and the anticipatory panic of getting the yellow stuff on you made for a fun class – in a hysterical kind of way. So much fun in fact, that Judy decided to have the same class in our own show. So there you go.

They also had an obstacle course and there was a jump! Are obstacle courses supposed to have jumps in them? Nobody had said anything about a jump before. Kinna thinks the point of jumps is to walk through or run through or possibly stop dead in front of them and carefully step over; the concept of lifting all legs and jumping eludes her at this point, and pretty well everybody knows how I feel about jumping. But, five minutes before that class we started to practice jumping. Not the best time to get into new stuff and not that it actually made a difference, but at least we managed to trot through the jump instead of walk through it, and also demonstrated to the audience the only trot they would see that day.

Our main challenge was a wooden sounding board, about 30 feet long, in the middle of the ring, used by the Pasos to demonstrate their fino gait. Kinna was suspicious of the sound the thing made and the way it looked, especially after the rain. We addressed it whenever we were in the ring, and went from shying away from it completely, over placing one foot on it briefly, to walking along the length of it, not happily but willingly.

There was very little stress, and everybody had a grand time. There were lots of laughs, even during the classes, and certainly before and after every class. How one judge could keep track of up to 20 horses in one class, judge their individual versions of toelt, and stay relaxed and enthusiastic all through the day, is a mystery to me, but the Paso trainer/judge they had hired for the day managed to do it, and do it well. I liked the fact that ribbons were given out at the end of each class – schooling-show style. It made it easier for the audience to keep track of winners and favorites, and when we were done, we were done.

We found out later that in past years many classes were cancelled on the spot, due to lack of participation, so they always have many classes to provide enough choices for everybody. Well, this year they had almost 30 horses, and only one class was cancelled due to a cantankerous sound system, so it was a very full and very long day. Maybe our idea of only accepting advance registration for our shows is a pretty good one, and maybe it’s something we will see in the future for the Gaited Show as well.

I really enjoyed myself, and also enjoyed meeting new people with gaited horses and learning about their specific breeds. We are all small groups of gaited horse enthusiasts, all struggling with similar issues when it comes to organizing events and meeting the non-riding public. Although I see the fun and also the need to have breed specific events to emphasize what makes each breed special, and hopefully achieve a certain standard, I feel it is also important to cross breed boundaries every so often and come together as friends of gaited horses. Even all of us together make for a relatively small group of horses and riders, compared to anything organized for ‘regular’ horses, and if we want to raise awareness in the community, putting all gaited breeds together in some events, may be the way to go.

And then again, it was just pure fun, so I will be back next year for sure!

Chris Soeffner