The Maryland Horse Expo was held January 18th through the 21st at the Maryland State Fairgrounds and was a successful event for the Mason Dixon Region.
This year the members decided to do two booths, keeping the traditional spot, and the second one on breed row, which is the first year for the Maryland Expo. The old booth location proved to still draw a lot of attention while the breed row booth had considerable traffic and people stopping to actually look at and pet the Paso Fino.
A huge thank you goes out to Denise Clearwater for coordinating the booth setups and keeping the schedule of times for the volunteers to watch the booth, meanwhile I coordinated the demo horses and clinic times. We would like to thank the following members for volunteering for booth times or for their setup skills; Denise Clearwater, Connie Wolkowicz, Beth Webb, Mike Cummings, Diane Dutt, Karen Basehore, Karen Kraushaar, Cindy Mills, Emily Collins, Anna Radcliffe, Keith Gorsuch, Cecilia Uhlmann, Virginia Foster, Dick Teachout, Sandy Thomas and Maureen Boskin.
Thank you Beth and Dave Webb of Casa de Questa, for providing their two horses Candy and Champ for the demonstrations and clinics and Keith and I of Middlefield Farm provided three horses and they were Bravo, Sopresa and Prisa. The riders for the demonstrations were Beth Webb, Robin Wilcox, Anna Radcliffe, Keith and Lisa Gorsuch. Each time during the demonstration the breed history was reviewed and then each exhibitor's horse was explained how its way of going was compared to one another so that the audience could get a feel for performance versus pleasure and/or trail.
During last years expo we were asked to participate in the Celebration of Gaits on Friday evening and this year again we participated and were asked to participate in a couple other of Liz Graves gaited clinics. For the Friday evening clinic, due to unexpected flight delays, Liz was unable to do the Celebration of Gaits. So thanks to Jackie Cowan, instead of canceling the clinic, each one of the gaited breeds elected a represented to speak about the breed and the clinic went on. Beth Webb was the breed representative that spoke on behalf of the Paso Fino and Lisa Gorsuch riding Bravo demonstrated the various gaits of the Paso Fino.
On Saturday, Keith and I participated in the Structure clinic with Prisa. Liz during this clinic explained how the structure differs on a gaited horse versus a non-gaited horse and that is how gait happens. She then took each one of the breeds and explained the difference in the structure and compared them to one another.
Sunday, Beth Webb riding Champ, and myself on Sopresa, participated in the Dressage clinic for the gaited horse In this clinic Liz discussed riding your horse with feel and intent as she worked the group of nine riders through various leg yielding exercises, traveling straight and how to maintain gait when changing directions or going through the corners of the arena.
The clinics that we participated in were fun and really gave us a lot more exposure to the public. It also gives the public a chance to see the gaited breeds together and the ability to compare the movement of each. There was a lot of positive feedback and comments from the public visiting our booths about the horses in the clinics and the demonstrations.
The general consensus by the members and many vendors were that the overall numbers of people attending the expo were down this year. The weather was usually cold with some snow coming mid day on Sunday. The horses were all sent home shortly after the last demo and everyone made it home safely on Sunday evening.
Thanks again for all those participating and good luck to Sheri Becker and the members volunteering and demonstrating at the Pennsylvania Expo on February 22nd through the 25th.
Submitted By Lisa Gorsuch
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