A Day In Horse Paradise

Since the campground is right next door to the Horse Park, we had much less trouble finding it in the morning! The rain had held off but it had yet to get blistering hot, so we set off for a day full of horses. 

I didn't realize how poorly I had hidden my horse addiction until my recent high school reunion. I thought everyone would be pleasantly surprised that I ended up working with horses. I was an expecting an "oh, cool, so you're still riding!" or something similar. Instead, not a single person was even remotely shocked that my life still revolved around horses. The overwhelming response was more along the lines of "well of course you work with horses!"

Billy met me when I still worked in a barn everyday, often waking up before sunrise to voluntarily run around with horses all day, so I like to think he knew what he was in for. A year later, he's still with me, despite me dragging him to the barn in all weather at all hours and my (annoying?) ability to relate every topic of conversation back to horses.

I'm not sure if Billy envisioned 4-5 hours of horse action that day, but as usual, he gamely went around to every horse attraction with me and made sure we didn't miss any of the demonstrations I'd mentioned wanting to go to. He let me pick our (extensive) route around the Horse Park, and even hiked all the way out to the Alltech Arena and Rolex Stadium with me! He took a million pictures and videos and wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything.

I don't want to be one of those people waxing poetic about their fantastic signficant other, but he really deserves some recognition for spending the entire day watching me ooh and ahh at seemingly endless horse attractions. I mean, come on, I even dragged him to the Kid's Barn for the Mare and Foal show so I could see a baby horse up close!

Even better...it was a mini baby horse!!

Skip, seen above with his mom, put on a hilarious show for us. He was feeling quite frisky and while I fully acknowledge his behavior would be terrifying if he was a normal-sized horse, since he's the size of a Golden Retriever, it was hilarious. There was a lot of pint-size bucking, rearing, and attempts to trot away from his handler.

After the Kid's Barn, we headed over to the Horses of the World barn which houses a ton of different breeds, many of which I'd actually never heard of. Billy spotted the "horse riding" attraction, which I thought may involve an actual pony ride, but we walked in to these fantastic contraptions:

Naturally, we both eagerly stuffed quarters into them to experience the wonders of trotting and cantering on a mechanical horse!  

From there, we visited the Big Barn, one of the largest (if not THE largest...I can't remember!) indoor barns that was used as an auction house when the grounds of the Horse Park were still a Standardbred farm. 

Billy makes a friend

Laura the draft horse!

One of the highlights of the day was visiting the Hall of Champions, where we got to see famous racehorses Funny Cide and Cigar, among a few others. It's funny how ordinary they look now that they're fat and retired!

Funny Cide

Cigar

After the Hall of Champions, we returned to the Horses of the World to watch the demonstration, which included a Paso Fino, a breed from Puerto Rico with exceptionally tiny (and allegedly comfortable) gaits.

One of our last stops was the iconic Rolex Stadium, followed by Man O War's memorial. Billy took some fantastic shots, so I'll let them take it from here!