Saddle Club has Second Largest Horse Show of the Year

The Gilmer County Saddle Club had one of its biggest shows so far of the year on Saturday, August 25th.The Saddle Club’s open show had a total of 29 different classes and featured around 243 different entries, making it the second largest horse show of the year so far, according to Gilmer County Saddle Club President, Jo Lynn Long.

Highlights from the show included when Kristen Miller and Lexie Jacobs, both of Blue Ridge, won the Open Texas Barrels and the Juvenile 13-17 year old Cloverleaf Barrels classes of the show. Miller would earn first place in the Open Texas Barrels class of the show with a time of 9.860 seconds, while Jacobs, earned first place in the Juvenile Cloverleaf Barrels class with a time of 17.820 seconds.

Other memorable moments from the show included local seventeen year old Gilmer County horse rider Rainey Cantrell winning her very first English Walk Trot Open class on her horse Shepard. Cantrell, who was excited after the win because it was her very first time ever competing in the English Walk Trot class told FYN, “I’ve only rode Shepard for a month. I did not expect to win my first time out at all!”

A full list of winners from the show is listed below:

As always, the Gilmer County Saddle Club also featured a special kids “Stick Horse” class in which every kid participating was presented with a blue ribbon.

However, the Gilmer County Saddle Club didn’t let the kids have all the fun, as member of the Gilmer County Saddle Club Duel Sanford and even President of the Saddle Club Long, competed in such classes of the show themselves such as Country Pleasure Racking, Trail Pleasure Racking, and Mule Western Pleasure.

The next Gilmer County Saddle Club Horse show is scheduled for September 15th, and will include a new Hunter Division which starts at 10:00 in the morning, followed by the regular show at 1:00 p.m. Saddle Club President Long says at this show, the Saddle Club will be trying something new, by adding a Hunter Division jumping contest.

Gilmer County Saddle Club board member Eston Cantrell, pleased with the large number of entries in Saturday night’s show, said at the end of the event, “I thought we had a real good show. We had a lot of spectators, and lots of different horses. We had a lot of barrel running horses, English Equitation, and several racking horses. It was a good show!”

For pictures of the show, please view the photos below: