Fair, Day One (so far)

[kayre]

Kidlet was up at 6:30 to go feed Whisper and clean her stall. She came back home, and we both went back at 8:30 to get ready for halter classes. An hour later Whisper was groomed, polished, flysprayed, and polished some more, and ready for the big time.



"Oooh, yes, right there!"

For halter class, it's the horse being judged-- mostly. Good showmanship still matters. Each handler leads her horse to the judge at a walk, away at a trot, and then he does walking inspections. Some judges immediately separate them into two groups, very discouraging once the kids figure out they're in the 'B' group. This one didn't do it that way; he began to separate out horses as he did his first walking inspection. Whisper and Laura were in the A group; then he reviewed that group and placed them in 7th. THEN... he did another walking inspection, and moved her to 5th! He spent a long time pondering the #4 horse and Whisper, but didn't change the placings any further.



That was quite all right... clearly the kidlet was delighted with a 5th place out of 26 horses. Best of all, Whisper beat Lightning, a quarter horse from our own barn who has always been placed above Whisper until today. (That rider took a first place with her other horse, so she's not suffering much.)



We bought lunch at our favorite booth-- sirloin tips, new potatoes, onions, peppers and mushrooms all grilled, yum!-- and took it into the stands to watch the llama trail competition, a favorite event of ours. Competitors have to lead their (borrowed) llamas through an obstacle course with things like a tunnel, a rocking bridge, stairs, and into and out of a trailer. This pair was a crowd favorite but failed to pass two obstacles.