The Mane Event - update

[atticus]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to say The Mane Event is going good! We have a CBER booth with all the t-shirts and stuff and getting alot of interest in rescue horses. Hytyme and Whispering Winds have a booth too, as well as Hope For Horses and Cowgirl Spirit. CBER horses have been featured in the clinics and have done very well. The horses that are there are Champ, Lilly (Azreal), Royal Reign (Chet), Tarkh, Atticus, Thistle, Willow and Buddy. They are really representing for their fellow rescue horses.

I have to say Champ is BEAUTIFUL in person, OMG!! He is the total hunter or dressage style TB. So Graceful!

All the other are beautiful as well and Lilly is sooooo cute!

Tarkh did very well in his clinic (I will let Tash tell you guys about it).

Thistle is doing excellent, she is so well behaved.

Royal Reign is doing very well for his first time out, he is nervous but taking it all in stride.

Of course Buddy is doing fine he is like "been there, done that"

Willow is getting some of her bugs worked out and has found a trainer so that is good, she is doing very well too.

Atticus is totally bored and wants to go home to his pasture. He is busy being the Denice the menace of the pack! BRATTY!

The parade was very fun, although while everyone was waiting for the parade they decided to do the Gun show first where they shoot balloons. OMG the horses went crazy. Lilly had to go back to her stall and then didn't want to come back out. Royal went back but then came back out for the parade. Atticus handled the gun fire well, but it just hopped him all up. By the time we got into the arena for out turn the horses were pretty wired. They did very well for all they went through prior and Jaime rode Champ and he looked great!! We found out very quickly that Atticus is NOT a fan of the loudspeaker, this is the first time I have ever seen my horse try to run from anything. He was so scared, eyes as big as saucers!! I walked him the best I could and then got outta there.

All in all I think it is going very well, most people cannot believe they are rescue horses and are very impressed by them. I have to admit when Atticus was all bathed and hooves painted he looked just as good as any hunter in the ring or at a show barn (you would never know we had just pulled him outta the pasture with the muddy donkey!!)

Pics will be posted, there are alot of them!!

I want to say a Big Thank you to everyone who participated.

The Lampings set up the booths and the stalls and they are simply beautiful!

Wendy D and Vickie have been manning the booth and it is great to spend time with people you usually only hear on the phone.

THANK YOU to Kyle and Maureen for all their hard work. Kyle raised the booth money for his 4-H project and then came down and manned the booth. We gave him all the candy he could eat!!

[maureen]

The CBER horses were so beautiful, I thought the horses and owners did a great job of being representatives. I wondered what happened to Lilly, I saw her in her stall and she is gorgeous. Steve Rother had trouble with his horse, he said it was "an utter disaster." The guns and large crowds made it hard for all the horses but the CBER horses handled it all very well and received big cheers.

[swissgrl]

can't wait to see pictures.

[atticus]

maureen said:

The CBER horses were so beautiful, I thought the horses and owners did a great job of being representatives. I wondered what happened to Lilly, I saw her in her stall and she is gorgeous. Steve Rother had trouble with his horse, he said it was "an utter disaster." The guns and large crowds made it hard for all the horses but the CBER horses handled it all very well and received big cheers.

Crum had been sick all weekend and they took Lilly home early. But she was not able to walk in the parade as Lilly was VERY scared of the gunfire and was very hard to hold when she decided this was not the place for her, with Crum feeling sick it was better just to leave her in the stall. Lilly looked beautiful though, lots of inquiries about her.

[crum]

atticus said:

maureen said:

The CBER horses were so beautiful, I thought the horses and owners did a great job of being representatives. I wondered what happened to Lilly, I saw her in her stall and she is gorgeous. Steve Rother had trouble with his horse, he said it was "an utter disaster." The guns and large crowds made it hard for all the horses but the CBER horses handled it all very well and received big cheers.

Crum had been sick all weekend and they took Lilly home early. But she was not able to walk in the parade as Lilly was VERY scared of the gunfire and was very hard to hold when she decided this was not the place for her, with Crum feeling sick it was better just to leave her in the stall. Lilly looked beautiful though, lots of inquiries about her.

For those of you who were not there I thought I would explain how Lily behaved when scared by the gunfire so no one gets the wrong idea. She never offered to pull away from me or encroached on my space when she was scared even though it was obvious she wanted to run. However she was jumping from side to side and swinging her hind end around with little regard to what was behind or to the side of her. The more gunfire there was the more agitated she became. She began to shake all over and sweat. I chose to take her back to her stall and not to take her into the parade because I was concerned for her peace of mind and for the safety of her and the other horse and handlers around her. Once she was back in her stall she was still slightly agitated and would flinch at every sharp noise. She did mostly settle down eventually. Before loading her up and taking her home saturday evening I did take her back out into the building where the gunfire had been. She never hesitated to go into the building and she walked calmly around the arena area. She was very good and did not spook even when one of the other horses who was in the area spooked. This morning she is still a bit flinchy about sharp noises. I will of course see what I can do over time to desensitize her a little bit to sharp sounds and in particular gunfire. I think it will help her a lot that my horses at home are completely used to gunfire and don't pay any attention to it.

[crum]

I'd also like to thank all of the people who volunteered at the booth and organized things for all of their hard work. I was particularly glad there were so many of you that I didn't feel obligated to spread my "plague" to the populace of the the expo by manning the booth. So many people talked to me about Lily and the rescue while I was down in the barn that I am feeling a bit guilty that somebody will come down sick. Of course I'd like to apologize if any of you end up coming down sick

I would also like to say all of the other horses were indeed excellent representatives of CBER. Champ in particular looked incredibly elegant under saddle.

Also Lily appears to have quite the fan following out there. I realized after the fact that we might have been able to do some fundraising for CBER by accepting donations for people to have photos taken with her. The little kids in particular seemed fascinated by her. I have about 5-10 pictures of her that were taken while at the expo that I will post later today. They are of her tacked up and under saddle early saturday afternoon. I didn't ride for very long because my inner ear has been affected by my illness and my sense of balance was screwed up.

[atticus]

I think all the horses did very well considering the " gun fire antics". Willow also stayed behind in her stall for safety reasons and I think that was the best course of action. No need to risk any horse for the sake of a parade, that is for sure.

I am just happy that Crum was well enough to Bring Lilly for as long as she could (being sick at a horse show is horrible I can relate) Lilly in person is amazing! She is beautiful and a true gentle giant!

I brought Atticus back into the arena yesterday so he could see it wasn't that scary, he walked around in the arena and was calm about it.

Wendy and Vickie talked to the show staff about the fact that they should have the gunfire at the end so all the other horses aren't spooked, many of people's personal horses were spooked too. The horses used in the gun fire show have on ear plugs. I actually ended up in the urgent care clinic at Kaiser Sunday morning, when Atticus spooked he pulled my shoulder out. So I hope next year they do some re-thinking about the order.

All of our horses represented themselves very well I think and it was a good learning exerience for them as well. So a win - win situation for sure!

[penny/pals]

I was there on Sunday the horses all looked wonderful I wish I could have seen more of the performances over the weekend.

[atticus]

Some pics of the event on this thread : rescuesonly.proboards59.com/index.cgi?board=mane&action=display&thread=1167253643&page=2