Cob Jockey

A couple of weeks ago, I texted Connor's breeder and said, "Hey, want to go to the Royal?"  There were two Castleberry ponies showing in Canada's Royal Winter Fair, including Connor's nephew, plus a third that was by Nicole's Castleberrys ReFflection.  I'd never been to Canada before, and it sounded like a good time.

The two story "Horse Palace" is Art Deco af and I LOVED it.

If you've never heard of the Royal before, you're missing out.  It's like a state fair in the states meets Rolex meets the AECs meets...you get the idea.  It has competitions for every kind of farm animal and horse breed you can think of.  Farmers in muddy boots and families in sweatshirts and jeans sit in the stands right by tons of people who get decked out in full-length formal gowns and tuxedos to watch the prime events in the evenings, including FEI show jumping.  And it's PACKED.



Oh, and the shopping is absolutely off the chain, but we'll need a whole separate post for that.

Half of the Ogilvy booth

From a horse perspective, it was so cool to see so many different disciplines together in the same place.  We just don't do that in the US.  You won't find champion Welsh ponies getting ready for their line classes across the aisle from a former Canadian World Cup Show Jumping team member's show string in stabling.  You might have bits and pieces of each of these breeds and disciplines at various events, but nothing all together like this.

Coaching class.  The greys are imported Czech Kladrubers, while the blacks and bays are both Dutch Warmbloods.  The judge wore a suit and a bowler and tipped his cap at the gentlefolk dressed in furs in the coaches, and the men in the coaches returned the courtesy

The ponies we were actually there to see did absolutely amazing.  Castleberrys Athanasia (Gwynfaes Culhwch x Bannockburn Belle by*Tuscani Dundee) took reserve in the C/D mares.

Castleberrys Athanasia

And Castleberrys Debonair (Castleberrys ReFflection x Castleberrys Dyma Hi by *Tuscani Dundee), who is out of Connor's full sister and by Roscoe , took the C/D stallion class and was then named overall C/D champion.  We were COMPLETELY not expecting that, he's only three and was up against two incredibly nice and more mature Cob stallions, so we kinda went nuts hugging each other and cheering when he was announced.

Yes, that expression runs in the family!  He looks almost nothing like Connor, he really takes after Connor and Dyma Hi's dad, but every so often I'd catch this expression on his face and think "THAT'S MY HORSE!"

It was such an awesome adventure.  I'm going to do a couple more posts, one on the shopping and one just full of pictures.

Debonair being the Best Boy.  I just love him.