The Oklahoma Quarter Horse Association once again hosted one of the biggest AQHA shows of the year, the Redbud Spectacular, June 1 – 12 at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds.
According to all-around youth exhibitor Lindsey McMullen (who also took some of the candids), “It’s HOT! Even though it’s hot, the weather has been great. Fortunately, none of the rain or bad weather that Oklahoma had seen just the week before Redbud has been around this week at all! Let’s hope it stays that way.
As usual at this show, the all-around classes are huge! The 14-18 horsemanship and showmanship has over 50 entries and the trail and western riding are in the high 20’s. Equitation is even in the 30’s. Amateur as well is very large. The only classes that seem to have declined is the pleasure and hunter under saddle classes and the general consensus is that the upcoming show in Raleigh has a big emphasis on those events and made it hard to do both for some exhibitors.
Here in Oklahoma City, we show everything 4 times which I love but it is also my only complaint about the horse show. The schedule is absolutely exhausting! We show many more classes than normal each day and then every day. An interesting thing that this show has done that is new to me is we only show the halter twice, but to 4 judges each time. It’s kind of nice to get it all knocked out in just two times. The 4 judges each time has proven to be pretty time consuming though.
The show staff are really running a great horse show. Everything is very organized and everything has been very timely, other than the late nights which have only occurred because of the large class sizes, and I don’t hear anyone complaining about that!
The patterns have been great with a high level of difficulty. There is definitely some great competition here and some of the best we have seen all year! There are many of the youth exhibitors that we don’t see all year are here and in preparation for youth world which is held at this same facility.”
All-Around Judges: Beckey Schooler, Andrea Simons, Tom Robertson, Mark Sheridan, Dan Trein, Dawn Clason, Dolly Chayer, Chris Jeter,
Clay Macleod, Gene Parker, Mark DeFreece, Tom Robertson, J.T. Mitchell, Chris Jones and Rob MeNeely.
Click here for candids from the 2011 Redbud brought to you by The Krymsun Kruzer. A special thanks to Lindsey McMullen and Carey Nowacek for the candids.
