Thought Streams: Epic Night of the Horse

This weekend is the 33rd annual Midwest Horse Fair at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison. My friends and I go every year.

The fair is described as: "...one of the top 3-day horse fairs in America. Hundreds of clinics, seminars and educational events are presented by some of the top horse professionals from around the country. Over 500 vendor booths offer shopping opportunities with something for everyone."

This year's theme is Horse Heritage, and some of the demonstrations will include jousting, cowboy mounted shooting, foxhunting and the history of the horse in warfare.

Friday night's show is the PRCA rodeo, and Saturday night's show is Epic Night of the Horse, which will explore the horse's past and how it has impacted cultures around the world.

In the past themes have included Superheros (Where the showers would dress up their horses in superhero costumes like Batman, and decorated their stalls) and Horses in Movies. That year we were fortunate to get our pictures taken with Blanco, one of two white Andalusian stallions used in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as Gandalf's horse Shadowfax. I also had his new owner sign the bottom of one of my Breyers that a friend had given me for a Christmas gift the year "Return of the King" came out; of course I named the horse Shadowfax.

(I unfortunately don't have those pictures on this computer. I will upload them when I can get them, possibly in a future post about my "brushes with fame.")

Another famous horse we were fortunate to see was Bright Zip, the Appaloosa "spokes-horse" of trainer John Lyons. The year Zip & John were at Midwest was unfortunately the year Zip passed away; I remember getting tears in my eyes watching this blind horse perform a spin without any hand controls from John - just the pressure of his legs was enough. The trust between horse and rider was amazing.

Two years ago I had the pleasure of meeting John after he did a demonstration at the local Fleet Farm; I walked into the store with him when he went to sign autographs, and told him about seeing him and Zip perform. I'd brought an issue of Horse Illustrated with me that had an excerpt from one of his books, and he dedicated the full-page color picture of him and Zip to me. I also showed him the Breyer model of Zip I'd bought from a friend in the hobby, which he'd signed in 1994, the year Zip was the Horse of the Year for BreyerFest. (Zip lost his eyesight the following year due to a reaction to medication.)


John looking at my model, Pure Zip Magic

Me and John (and Zip)

One of the first things we do when we get to the grounds is go into the vendor building; my friend knows someone who works for the Peter Stone Company, so we usually stop at their booth first. Then we'll wander (Well, technically inch, since the vendor hall is always so packed) around, stopping at a few different Breyer vendor booths, before getting some snacks (fresh-roasted cashews) and heading into the John Deere Coliseum for the first of the breed demonstrations. If there aren't any demos we want to see right away, we'll head for the barns and take TONS of pictures of the gorgeous horses.