Off to the Royal Welsh Show! (Updated with pics)

**Miss Z** · 07-28-2007, 04:12 PM

There was even a rat show! Maybe I could have brought Tia with me.

A pic of one of the fountains in the showground, although it's a little hard to tell which bit is water and which is path!

Now I have plenty of horses to show you. This was the ridden arab class...

...which also included an inhand element.

A beautiful Welsh driving pony.

A team of Ukranian Cossacks put on a marvelous display of trick riding, but were hard to photograph as they moved at such speed. Video coming later of these guys, too.

Still more...

**Miss Z** · 07-28-2007, 04:22 PM

Here are some beautiful Gypsy Vanner horses in the coloured class.

The inhand championship, which I think the appaloosa eventually emerged victorious.

The Ridden Cob class, a class that I really enjoyed.

The side-saddle class was probably the closest I saw to dressage. The Royal Welsh is more of a breed orientated type show as far as horses are concerned, so the main events of dressage, showjumping and cross country were not part of their agenda. The winner of the side-saddle happened to be one of the people in the group that we went in (not her in the pic, though).

The harness racing was something I'd heard of but never seen before, so was interesting to watch.

As always, the mounted games had everyone on the edge of their seat, but thankfully, England completely thrashed everyone else, much to the disappointment of the Welsh fans. In fact, Victoria and I got some very dagger-like looks in the grandstand, as we were sat amongst at least 100 die-hard Welshfolk shouting 'COME ON YOU EN-GER-LAND!'

More on its way...

**Miss Z** · 07-28-2007, 04:33 PM

The parade of the hounds. Even though I am strongly opposed to hunting and couldn't help muttering under my breath when the countryside alliance preached that its going to fight to lift the ban, it was a nice sight to see dogs and horses stretched at full out gallop in the ring.

The shetland pony grand national - too cute for words!

The champion shire was a beautiful, powerful animal.

This is one of the champion Welsh stallions, this one is a section C I think.

Another highlight was the miniature shetland class, these guys were absolutely miniscule. I think Victoria's German Shepherd, Max, would dwarf them all.

One of the greatest shows had to be the Interhunt Relay. Teams of 4 from from hunts around Wales have to be pitted against another team and get around a symmetrical course of obstacles, passing the baton to the next team mate, and the first to finish wins. There are no penalties for a fence knocked down, but three refusals and the next rider had to take over the rest of your course then do their own, too. It was great to watch, and was a real haphazard spectacular!

A skewbald safely over the picnic table

The 'bridge' had to be walked through first...

(still more, bored yet?)

**Miss Z** · 07-28-2007, 04:37 PM

...then jumped...

... but knock it down, and you had to go back and walk it again, wasting valuable time.

And here are my videos (sorry they aren't really that long, my memory stick was filling up and I didn't want to waste space)...

Firstly the champion driving stallion, the knee action of this guy was amazing.

Cossack rider.

The Bolddog freestyle display team, yes, that IS a lorry he's jumping over.

And part of the sheepdog trials, just missing the target the time I took the shot. Ah well.

So, that's all, enjoy!

**Freedom** · 07-28-2007, 05:21 PM

Looks like you had a lot of fun! I can't believe how many different items were included! I've spent 3 days at sheep dog trials, can't imagine having that AND all these other things. I'd be overwhelmed!

The middle Gypsy Vanner looks like one huge horse, wow!

I wouldn't want to be sitting at that picnic table when the horse is jumping it, he he.

Thanks so much for taking the time to take, sort and post all these wonderful photos for us!