Scottsdale 2012, part 2

This post will continue my trip to the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show last month.

For those of you who don't know about the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show, it is part one of the Triple Crown in Arabian horse shows and the most prestigious. Part two is the Canadian Nationals in August and part three is the American Nationals.

The first class was the Show Hack class. I love this class! The riders are asked to show at a walk, trot, and canter; collected, normal and extended gaits, and to hand gallop.

As you can tell from the line-up, it was a big class.

The next class was WESTERN PLEASURE. The horses were over-flexed and oh. so. s-l-o-w. but still, very beautiful. This lovely gray Arabian (with the ridiculously loooong tail) was named Grand Champion.

I llike how the two horses are looking my way. I wonder what they saw?

This little girl was having lots of fun with her pony.

Here we are!

Baby strollers aren't just for babies. We saw lots of pooches transported this way throughout the show.

The Purebred Arabian Native Costume class is always a crowd favorite with lots of pizazz, colors, and flash...and pretty horses. The crowd roars when they are asked to hand gallop and the class is over way too soon.

 

I like the golden tones of this photo. It really reminds me of the Arabian desert sands. And it's such a pretty horse!

Next, was an English Pleasure class, which is a Park class without the extreme action but still, very animated. I thought this rider was a bit large for his horse. Don't you think so, too? However, if I remember correctly, they took Reserve Champion. Crazy, huh?

I liked this girl's jacket, from a previous show.

 

The next class was new to me. It was called the Silver Saddle class for two reasons. One, because the winner got a beautiful western saddle with lots of engraved silver and two, because the horse and rider had to have a combined age of at least 70. 

It was open to half Arabians as well as purebreds. A horse with any percentage of other breed is known as a half Arabian.

I really liked this Appaloosa team. Because she's using a bosal, I'm guessing it's a young horse, so the rider must have been over 65? They took the title of Grand Champion. Yay!

This big bay sport horse ridden English was another favorite of mine. Too bad I didn't get it's head in the photo.

This is how big the arena is and how far away all the action was from where we were sitting.

Did I mention that I love my new Canon camera? Of course, I'm still learning how to use it and the lighting is simply awful for picture taking.

After the show, we drove back to the hotel and crashed for the night. Stay tuned for more of my trip...