Touch of Class

Over the weekend the AMHA- American Miniature Horse Association and MHAA- Miniature Horse Assoc. of Arizona hosted their 28th annual Touch of Class Miniature horse show. Since a lot of people who are in the driving club also show their mini's in hand and fine harness, a couple of the members spoke to the show staff and offered to present a Darby during the lunch break for entertainment, but also in hopes of drawing in some new members for both the ADCS- Arizona Driving & Carriage Society and the two mini clubs.

Back in December at the ADCS club Christmas party, volunteers were asked for to help set up, drive and take down the course. We would have an hour to do it and hoped there would be enough time to get it all accomplished. Of course I volunteered to help. Having done the jump crew for a few years at the Arabian show, this was right up my alley.

Jim designed the course with a little help from the Souza's and I and it included 12 cones and 4 hazards with 4 gates in each hazard. Driving it, the course was 3 cones and a hazard, 3 cones and a hazard and so on. Originally I was asked to drive a mini and not only help organize the course, but compete too. We never really worked it all out and then the morning of, I forgot my helmet so nothing more came of it....

The lunch break wasn't until after class 44 and we were told it could be anywhere between 11:30-12:30 or as late as 12:30-1:30, so most of us arrived around 10:30 so we would all be on hand and able to help organize things to get it all in the ring and set up in as little time as possible. Set up almost Always takes longer than tearing things down. It was almost 1pm by the time they were on class 30. A few of us had slipped out to the food vendors over by the hunter-jumper show going on outside. Some of us coming from hunter-jumper backgrounds, lingered a little to watch what we could as we made our way back to the Equidome.

After finishing our lunch and discussing our plan of setting up, we flagged a lady down and asked where we were in the schedule, if there were any scratched classes and how much longer we were looking at? They were on class 33 with classes 35-40 all being scratched with no entries, so it was getting close. Since the remaining classes were all halter & in hand, I asked if we could begin setting up our obstacles and cones on the far end, hoping to give us a little more time doing so. With the green light to proceed- everyone came in the arena and started moving fence panels, cones, barrels, poles, fake trees, jump standards, putting up numbers and letters and knocking it out. A couple of the drivers started walking the course- or at least what there was of it so far.

There had been a steadily growing number of people in the stands and thru the last few classes and the announcer kept saying to stick around and watch the ADCS presentation. Personally, I think setting things up while the other classes were still going on, helped to pique the interest of everyone in the stands of "What are they going to do????"