Horse show put through its paces by bad weather

Lenora Boyer nav­i­gates through the bar­rel por­tion of Senior Ver­sa­til­ity last Thurs­day, dur­ing the Delaware County Fair Junior Horse Show. Lenora won the over­all Senior High Point in the con­test­ing classes which were held Saturday.

BRECK J. HAPNER

Staff Writer

It turned out to be quite a week for the Delaware County Junior Fair Horse Show. The wet, muddy con­di­tions due to the con­stant rain post­poned and can­celled most horse show events through­out the fair week, although trail, reign­ing, pat­tern and ver­sa­til­ity classes were able to squeeze in class com­pe­ti­tions Tues­day and Thurs­day in the prac­tice ring, north of the main ring on the fairgrounds.

“This is the wettest fair I’ve ever been through and I’ve been a 4-H advi­sor for 24 years,” said Jon Melvin, pres­i­dent of the Delaware County 4-H Horse Advi­sors Com­mit­tee. “But the show will go on.”

The 4-H rid­ers each were com­pet­ing for High Point awards culled from multi-faceted con­tests such as Rein­ing Pat­tern, Speed and Con­trol, Pole Bend­ing and a com­bi­na­tion of Cones and Bar­rels, all of which were made dif­fi­cult on both horse and rider by the delays and inclement weather.

On Sat­ur­day, the final classes in all three age groups were held out­side the fair­grounds at the Real­ity Run indoor arena on U.S. 42N, final­iz­ing the event. Ten 4-Hers won cov­eted High Point awards for achiev­ing the high­est num­ber of points dis­tinc­tive to their par­tic­u­lar class. They include Bethany Ran­nebarger, from the Cow­boy Con­voy 4-H Club, who won the Begin­ner (all ages) High Point class; Rachel Rus­sell, Sun­bury Hal­ter & Sad­dle 4-H Club, Junior (ages 9–11) Eng­lish High Point class; Alexan­dra Arm­bruster, JJ’s E-Z Rid­ers 4-H Club, Inter­me­di­ate (ages 12–14) Eng­lish High Point class; Sara Dan­tuono, JJ’s E-Z Rid­ers, Senior (ages 15–18) Eng­lish High Point class; Samuel Smal­l­ets, Cow­boy Con­voy, Junior West­ern High Point class; Claire Chat­ter­ton, JJ’s E-Z Rid­ers, Inter­me­di­ate West­ern High Point class; and Saman­tha Arm­bruster, JJ’s E-Z Rid­ers, Senior West­ern High Point class. Also Mag­gie Cain, Bar­rels, Rails & Such 4-H Club, Junior Con­test High Point award; Ryleigh Fisher, Wild Rid­ers 4-H Club, Inter­me­di­ate Con­test High Point award; and Lenora Boyer, Bar­rels, Rails & Such, Senior Con­test High Point award.

The estab­lished event rhythm is very impor­tant and the rainy, muddy con­di­tions show­cased how well the horses and rid­ers were trained, nav­i­gat­ing through adverse ele­ments to dis­play how well each could remem­ber var­i­ous pat­terns as well as com­plet­ing an intri­cate set of spe­cific movements.

“My horse is only 5 years old, and although he was skit­tish at first about the rain, he really pulled through and I’m proud of him,” said Bethany Ran­nebarger, 14, a fresh­man at Big Wal­nut High School. “I think train­ing him myself formed a close rela­tion­ship that helped through the bad weather.”

Trot­ting and can­ter­ing, gal­lop­ing, speed­ing up and down, back­ing up and cir­cling are all quite dif­fi­cult to accom­plish in the mud. Mov­ing through cones, poles and bar­rels in the rain demand spe­cial agility and conformation.

“I trained every day, six days a week,” said Claire Chat­ter­ton, 14, also a fresh­man at Big Wal­nut. “My horse and I worked on every­thing, like pat­terns, show­man­ship and horse­man­ship. When the weather is nasty, this makes a real difference.”

Alexan­dra Arm­bruster, 14, a fresh­man at Big Wal­nut, said that it had rained even dur­ing the state qual­i­fy­ing show before the fair, but her horse acted com­posed through the entire event. “I was ner­vous at the begin­ning of the Delaware County Fair Junior Horse Show, but once I got into the arena, I was fine.”

“My horse was a trooper,” said Sara Dan­tuono, 17, who attends Olen­tangy High School. “He stuck by me in the rain and mud and I’m very proud of him. It’s hard because the horse can’t do its best when slid­ing around. The bad weather made us all focus and it increased the trust between our­selves and our horses.”

Sara was grate­ful for the effort that was put into the show, point­ing out that even though many events were rained out, through all the mud and mess, the rid­ers and horses came together. “I espe­cially want to thank Jon Melvin, who worked tremen­dously hard to accom­mo­date every­one. We all really appre­ci­ated his effort.”

“We’ve never had to move events off the fair­grounds,” said Melvin. “Every­body was under­stand­ing, patient and will­ing to keep work­ing so this event could hap­pen. It was great. Every­body pitched together.”

Posted by Gary Henery on Sep 25 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.