The first weekend in April I had the chance to travel down to the Equine Affair in Columbus Ohio. If your not sure what Equine Affair is, Its basically a large convention all things horse related. There is endless shopping from every vendor you can imagine. From feed to tack to horse shampoo, you name it, its probably there! Aside from all of the shopping you can attend as many clinics as your brain can handle. This year they brought in some great clinicians like Guy Mclean, Dan James, Brandi Lyons and many others. You can bring your horses to ride in some of these clinics or you can take a note pad and audit! Their are also open forums where you can listen to talks on horse management, mane pulling, vet care and many other topics.
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| Guy Mclean breaking a Fresian Mare in 4 days. |
What drew me to Equine Affair itself was not only the event itself but the organization that invited me to help along side of them at Equine Affair. I was approached by New Vocations and asked if I could come down and help ride some of their Standardbred's in the Standardbred demonstrations that took place during the event! I was very excited by the opportunity and packed my bags for Ohio!
New Vocations is an organization that takes in off the track Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds and finds them new homes. Unlike some rescue groups they only take in horses directly off the track or horses that have been on the track with in the past year. This gives trainers and owners who have race horses the opportunity to do the right thing with their horses after they have finished their racing career. We know many horses end up in auctions with unknown fate's and this is one excellent option to send your horse to a program that will find them a great home as well as follow them for a few years in their new career.
While in Ohio I was given Thoropedia to ride. This bay gelding with a sweet heart was a pleasure to ride! His personality was so laid back and just what we needed to navigate crowds of people and other horses.
Each evening at Equine Affair their is an evening show which they call the Fantasia. They put on an amazing show, showcasing some of the animals and trainers at the event. I saw Dan James, beautiful reining horse, Guy Mclean and his liberty team of horses as well as other amazing animals show off their talents.
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| Dan James |
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| Guy Mclean |
Overall Equine Affair was an amazing experience. I loved being able to partner with New Vocations and support the work they do. I hope to be able to help them again in the future!
For more information about how you can adopt a horse through New Vocations or to learn more about the organization.: http://www.horseadoption.com/
Believe it or not Thoropedia is STILL available for adoption! He is such a lovely guy I wish I could scoop him up for myself! If you are looking for a horse check him out!
