“A horse is poetry in motion”

(Author unknown)

Here we are in the little-known town of Deer Lodge, MT.  Our timing is impeccable.  “Why?” you ask.  Because this very weekend that we are staying in Deer Lodge is the very same weekend of the 18th Annual Big Sky Draft Horse Expo … that’s why!

You are probably asking yourself right now, “What the heck is that?”  Actually, when the owner of the RV park mentioned it to us, we also asked that very same question.  So we took a gamble and went on Saturday.  Well, we were pleasantly surprised. 

Draft horses are large horses bred for hard, heavy tasks such as ploughing and farm labor.  The different breeds share common traits of strength, patience, and a docile temperament.  Draft horses include Belgians, Shires, and Clydesdales.  This event also included mules ... and there were some beauties in that breed.

There were about 55 contestants in this two-day competition.  The majority of the contestants came from Idaho and Montana with one entrant from Washington (Reese Family Belgians from Elk, WA) and one from Clark, Wyoming.  You have to have some serious money to compete in these events.  They not only have their horse(s) but all the different accoutrements needed for each competitive event in which they participate:  bridles, reigns, “bling”,  the different carts, trailers to transport not only the horses, but all the accessories, etc.  The announcer was telling us that one contestant had to make three trips from his home just to get all the gear and horses here (which amounted to around 1,000 miles total), and then they have to repeat those three trips to haul it all back home!

Neither Gary nor I are what you would call “horse people” but we stayed the whole day to watch the different competitions.  It was surprisingly crowded and the announcer mentioned that it was the largest crowd he had seen.  Here’s a picture of the stands I took with my phone (yup, my battery went dead again because I did too many videos trying to get a good one!).

 

Now onto what you’ve been waiting for … the magnificent, beautiful beasts doing their work.  We missed the very first event of the day so the one we started watching was the Four-Up Driving Competition. It is open to both horses and mules and the driver takes the four horses through a series of patterns including figure 8's and backing up into a "parking space".  Look at these lovelies. Nick Barney, from Barney Shires in Lewisville, Idaho, won this event.

These were my favorite animals and team of the day (below).  The contestant was Russ Anderson from Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. They always performed so well, won and placed in a few events this year, and also won or placed in a number of events last year.  I think these mules are just stunning looking animals.  By the way, you can tell if it's a mule by the ears.  See how big the ears on these?



I took this video of all the contestants from the above competition after their performance.

Next was the Hitch Team competition. This is for the show style draft horse to strut their stuff. These horses come decked out in the finest harnesses and wagons with manes braided and tails tied up in a bun to show off their power and athletic abilities.

Wade Thornley from Eagle Rock Belgians in Lewisville, Idaho (below) was the winner of this competition.

 

The next competition was a lot of fun to watch.  There’s the teamster (driver) and his/her helper. Each team must stop to pick up hay bales from pallets and put them on the sled, then walk or trot around the course. On the return, they must drop off the bales of hay at each stop—without breaking any bales and they must be put back onto the platform without going outside the platform at all. It was fun watching some of the teamsters take off while their helper was still loading or unloading the hay!  One of the teamsters was 92 years old and he got the most laughs of the day when he started driving off before his helper was back on the sled which caused his helper to go flying backwards off the sled.  The salty, old teamster came back to take a bow.  So cute.  He did a great job driving that sled, though.  The competition is based on no faults and time.  But “no faults” wins over time!

I’m not sure if I have the right photo for the winner, but it was Carrie Hahn from Helena, MT (below) and I’m hoping this is her!  There were two women teams one was slower than molasses in January and I put my camera away (sorry).  This is the other all female team and they did a much better job so I’m thinking it must have been this team that won.  But honestly you should have a male helper. These are 40 lb. bales of hay … know what I’m sayin’?

 

That was the last event before my camera battery died.  We also watched Four Horse Hitch, Four-Abreast, Men’s Cart Class, and Open Six Driving Competition. And by now, you're probably glad my camera battery died because you're tired of looking at draft horses!

What was my favorite? I fell in love with these high performing, beautifully sculpted animals along with all their bling.  Here are some close-up pictures of just a few of them.

 

These were some more beautiful mules from S&D Mules located in Ponderay, Idaho.

 

It was an expensive day for us too.  They had a quilt competition and I saw a quilt I couldn’t live without (ha!ha!ha!).  So we are now the proud owners of this beautiful quilt (see below).

 

This photo shows the "overall" pattern of the quilt.

 

Look at the beautiful border of this king-sized quilt!

 

The close-up of a quilt “square” shows the detail.  There are a number of these brown squares and the images within the squares include a duck, a bear, maple leaves, and a moose (in this square).  The whole quilt was machine-quilted with a beautiful leaf design which you can see in the off-white area of this square. 

 

Proverbs 21:31 // The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the LORD.