The Shows are Showing!

I think I've presented this conundrum before, but HOW do folks chose which shows, clinics and events to attend?! Especially when going outside their normal discipline??

It seems that this is the start of the release of every light horse show (LHS) entry form across the province. In the past week, announcements have been made for 5 LHSs and I'm finding myself staring at a stuffed calendar, trying to choose what and where to go. Yes, I want to do them all. Who wouldn't??!

At the moment, we've mailed our form and $$ in for the Beatrix Strebel Clinic at the end of April, which will mark the start of our travels. We're determined to make the three Dressage Winnipeg shows, and they normally have a fun show in August we'll aim for too.

IRC's western weekend is a go as well. Now, what about the rest?!

I've devised a system. Any LHS which is NOT on a dressage weekend and that has at least SIX classes I'd confidently enter, I'll aim to attend. And that's within a reasonable driving distance. That means the SIRAS LHS in Stonewall. Unfortunately, SIRAS is on the same weekend as the Eventing Clinic...

With 7 classes I'd be interested at SIRAS, I'm tempted to skip out on the Eventing clinic...
SIRAS has both a cross-rail class AND a ride and run class. Ride and run looks REALLY neat. One person rides a low x-rail course and then hands their crop off to a runner who runs through the same course. Fastest time wins. Now to convince the BF that he's gonna run it... ; )
This is the same LHS that has the Command class (simon says) I was blogging about a couple days back, and a walk-trot english pleasure, trail class and bareback ride. Add in showmanship and we'd have a pretty neat day. Since it's just one day, it's just a haul-in, haul out sort of deal.

The only other one I'm pretty focussed on, even though I have only a couple classes I'd be interested in, is the Boissevain LHS. Why? Because it's right next to the beautiful Turtle Mountian Provincial park which offers miles of trails and horse camping. Plus, the LHS is combined with their Fair, which has ATV mud bog races for the BF. So a couple days camping, riding the trails (he'll take his mountian bike), a horse show and the BF happy watching dirt being slung. Nice vacation!