Good Morning Equinelover,
The ASPC National Shetland Congress will be held at the National Equine Center in Lake St. Louis this year (August 2-5, 2006, for four days). You can go to their website and take a look at the facility and what it has to offer: www.thenationalequinecenter.com.
The ASPC National Shetland Congress for the past few years has been held in Rantoul, Illinois at the show arena there. Basically we outgrew that facility. We don't have to qualify our Shetlands for Congress like the Miniatures do. Since we only have around 500 horses at Congress we would be shooting ourselves in the foot if qualification were a factor right now. According to Lenard Davenport, Show Manager for the ASPC Congress we are going to have around the same number of ponies again this year.
The Ohio State Fair aka the World Show (July 18-21, 2006), has had Shetlands at their show for a number of years. Only until the last year or so have they added Miniature horses to their show lineup. Mr. Marvin McCabe (937-548-3244) is the show contact for the Ohio State Fair show. It was moved to July about two years ago because it use to be held right after the National Shetland Congress in August.
There are Obstacle, Hunter, Hunter over Fences, and Jumper classes at Congress. Our ponies are to be shown over a minimum of four fences consisting of at least 6 jumps anywhere between 16" to 24", they are six foot wide and the jump standards can't be over 40" tall and all jump standards cannot have wings on them since we do most of this in hand except for the Hunter Over Fences. Hunter Over Fences the rider must be no older than 14 years old to ride Hunter Over Fences. All ponies in the Hunter/Jumper classes must be a minimum of 2 years old. You can go to the American Shetland Pony Registry website: www.shetlandminiature.com, go to the right of the page and down a bit and load the offical rulebook in case you don't have a hard copy. You can view all of the obstacle, hunter/jumper rules on line.
Here is a brief line-up of the ASPC National Shetland Congress. If you would like to keep up with the show results, they will be posted at the following website:
http://www.horseshowsonline.com select the ASPC Shetland Congress and you'll get to see who won each day.
Show Starts Wednesday August 2nd at 8:00 a.m.
Shetland Futurity-Stallion/Gelding
Shetland Futurity-Mare
Amateur Incentive Mare
Amateur Incentive Gelding
Evening will be driving classes
Thursday August 3rd at 8:00 a.m.
Modern Stallion
Modern Pleasure Stallion
Classic Stallion
Foundation Stallion
Classic Youth Showmanship
Classic Youth Mare
Modern Youth Mare
Leadline,Walk, Walk-Trot
Classic Open Pleasure Under Saddle
Evening More Driving
Friday August 4th 8:00 a.m.
Modern Mare
Modern Pleasure Mare
Classic Mare
Foundation Mare
Driving
Evening
Modern Weanling Sweepstakes
Classic Weanling Sweepstakes
Driving
Saturday August 5th 8:00 a.m.
Modern Geldings
Modern Pleasure Gelding
Classic Geldings
Foundation Gelding
Group Classes ie Produce of Dam, Get of Sire etc.
then the American Show Pony Classes show saturday afternoon and presentation of the Youth/Amateur Awards along with the Tack Room Awards, Groom Awards, Trainer Awards and table decoration awards.
Evening Classis will be all of the driving Stakes
We go home on Sunday
Maybe you can join in the fun next year with your pony.
Good Luck to those of you that will be attending Congress, stop by and say hello.
Karen Shaw
Fiddlestix Miniatures & Shetlands
My website to view our ponies and For Sale Horses:
http://www.fiddlestixponyfarm.com
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