This past Saturday I went out to Equine Affaire at the Fairplex in Pomona to help some friend from the War Horse and Militaria Foundation put on a side-saddle demonstration. It also was a good opportunity to blow a hole in my wallet with some shopping...
For those of you who may not know, Equine Affaire is an equine-related convention that's held at the annually at the Fairplex in Pomona. There are various exhibitions and classes put on by varous entities and, of course, there are vendors selling all manner of equine-related merchandise from saddles and tack to supplements to riding apparrel to trailers (some pretty BIG trailers).
Usually...unfortunately, the effects of the current poor economic climate were also present and in contrast to past years, there were significantly fewer vendors (I've been attending since 2004). The strange thing is that of the vendors present, it seemed like close to a third of them were selling supplements of one kind or another. Not very interesting once I'd secured my quarterly supply of Hylasport.
I'd budgeted about $200 for myself to spend there and all said and done, I came in under budget (not by much counting the $16 admission and the $9 parking fee). There just wasn't much that interested me so I would up with a supply of Hylasport, a hay bag for the trailer, renewing my subscription of Equus for two more years, and a hoof pick. Oh boy. Well, good thing there wasn't someone selling decent reproduction military tack from the 1870-1940 era!
I always like to hit the breed barn where various breed affiliation groups show off their horses to promote their breeds. This is where I first saw Fijord Horses up close and personnel- still want to get one one day although it really wouldn't fit with anything I do except trail riding. However, even here things were thin and it seemed to be much less than in recent years- and Fijords were definately missing. My friends were slated to show off a couple of the Arabian horses they were going to use in the side-saddle demonstration later on and that was pretty neat- helped shoot some video footage of that.
Overall, this year's Equine Affaire was nice but it really didn't grab me too much. There simply wasn't much of what I was interested in (supplements get old real fast) like interesting tack. Also, I just wasn't seeing any deals and the line at the Broken Horn booth was horrendous. I can simply make a trip to their store in Baldwin Park whenever. Maybe that was a good thing because my wallet could have been a lot lighter.
Well, maybe next year!! :-)
For those of you who may not know, Equine Affaire is an equine-related convention that's held at the annually at the Fairplex in Pomona. There are various exhibitions and classes put on by varous entities and, of course, there are vendors selling all manner of equine-related merchandise from saddles and tack to supplements to riding apparrel to trailers (some pretty BIG trailers).
Usually...unfortunately, the effects of the current poor economic climate were also present and in contrast to past years, there were significantly fewer vendors (I've been attending since 2004). The strange thing is that of the vendors present, it seemed like close to a third of them were selling supplements of one kind or another. Not very interesting once I'd secured my quarterly supply of Hylasport.
I'd budgeted about $200 for myself to spend there and all said and done, I came in under budget (not by much counting the $16 admission and the $9 parking fee). There just wasn't much that interested me so I would up with a supply of Hylasport, a hay bag for the trailer, renewing my subscription of Equus for two more years, and a hoof pick. Oh boy. Well, good thing there wasn't someone selling decent reproduction military tack from the 1870-1940 era!
I always like to hit the breed barn where various breed affiliation groups show off their horses to promote their breeds. This is where I first saw Fijord Horses up close and personnel- still want to get one one day although it really wouldn't fit with anything I do except trail riding. However, even here things were thin and it seemed to be much less than in recent years- and Fijords were definately missing. My friends were slated to show off a couple of the Arabian horses they were going to use in the side-saddle demonstration later on and that was pretty neat- helped shoot some video footage of that.
Overall, this year's Equine Affaire was nice but it really didn't grab me too much. There simply wasn't much of what I was interested in (supplements get old real fast) like interesting tack. Also, I just wasn't seeing any deals and the line at the Broken Horn booth was horrendous. I can simply make a trip to their store in Baldwin Park whenever. Maybe that was a good thing because my wallet could have been a lot lighter.
Well, maybe next year!! :-)
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