Draft Horse Classic!

Welcome Blogger Friends!!!! Yes, my best friend and I have had another MYSTERY TRIP. It was my turn for September...I choose the 22ND Annual Draft Horse Classic up in beautiful Grass Valley. It was at the beautiful Grass Valley Fair Grounds. The whole fair grounds are surrounded by huge pines. The Draft Horse show started at 10am, so we had about an 1 1/2 road trip ahead of us. We were armed with our coffees and set out for our adventure. The front of the fairgrounds had the magnificent, huge piece of sculpture, depicting a draft horse in action. Stunning piece. (I highly encourage you to click on the photos to see in great detail these beautiful animals in action!)

We bought our tickets and choose to seats that had the sun at our backs...good thing, as the sun was beaming on the grand stand for hours. I would have been burnt to a crisp.

First up was the 4 piece wagon hitch teams. The team had to show their agility and how to back up and turn right and left. They were beautiful draft horses. And those men loved their horses. I mean look at those coats and manes/tails! Just beautiful! Here is the second place winner! These horses were just beautiful, their coats just gleamed in the sun.

Here is the first place winner(all white team)! This man was so at ease with his 4 member team. Now mind you has 4 rains (which equals 8 pieces of leather through his fingers)to control these magnificent creatures. Ricky (was his name) made this job look way to easy. But I know that this is one hard job to maintain all the rains and still control the rig and horses all at the same time.

Mules barrel racing??? Yes sir...there you have it! It was hoot to see these animals race like the wind! They seemed to love it!

Adrien and I's favorite part...Draft Horse pulling competition. We were in complete awe of these Belgians. They were extraordinary in their strength. These 2 weighed in at 1500lbs a piece and then pulled about 4500lbs on the sled (which was metal and then packed with bags of sand).




They just kept adding more and more bags of sand. And every time these men would back these horses up to hitch up to the sled. These Shires, and Belgians were set to go. They love their jobs and damn are they spectacular at it also!

I want to you to look carefully at all the horses equipment. All that silver and harnesses, yokes, rains, chains and blinders. These 2 were very young and had ants in their pants. The owner had to drop the bit down to get more control. I can tell you though that all these men had to dig their boots in to pull back on the rains. Incredible strength these Shires, Clydesdale's, Belgians (a total of 7 types in the draft horse breed).


After the pulling competition they brought out these beautiful stallions. Stunning...for the life of me I can't remember the name of this breed (hoping Julie, who owns and operates a horse ranch will know the name). There were also some white horses that were out there 'dancing', they pawed the air and even bowed. They too are a special breed! It was so wonderful to see these horses canter!

The last part of the show was this HUGE contraption. It was pulled by draft horses back in the 1900's for logging. They showed how it worked, and how the industry relied on these beautiful animals to get the job done.

After the 22ND Draft Horse Classic it was off to check out the Lumberjack show!


This a 9 year old little girl (with the help of grandpa) cutting out a solid chair with a chainsaw!

And the log climbing, with toe spikes...I so want to try this! And I was telling Adrien I want to look into AXE throwing! I know...cool huh?! Me a LUMBERJACK! Wait and see...
Hope you enjoyed our September Mystery Trip...we sure did! It was an incredible day with those beautiful, magnificent creatures!


With much love,