Horsemanship triumphed in the finale of the Pfizer Fantasia performance at the 2009 event at the Ohio Expo Center recently. [Photographers; please see (1) below for technical details on this photo].

PRESENTING!

Billed as the nation’s premier equestrian gathering, the Affaire holds annual horse expositions in cities of the Northeast, Midwest and West. The 16th annual version included a four-day event in Columbus in early April.

The event drew tens of thousands of horse people to its world-class exposition and trade show.

Clinics, demonstrations and seminars were virtually countless—requiring a careful examination of the heavy schedule to cull the visitor’s favorites. Ladyfriend Joetta Goodman and I treated ourselves to Monty Roberts’ terrific show on calming an excitable horse and Craig Cameron’s Extreme Cowboy Race, for examples.

Roberts told of a horse owner needing more than two hours to load her horse into a trailer. He then worked quietly with that very animal for about 20 minutes, then, led it into the trailer in mere seconds.

Moments later he took the halter off the horse and it willingly followed him into the same trailer.

I was reminded of a very enjoyable book from the distant past, The Horse Whisperer, and spent the rest of the day watching horses and people do things impossible for horses and people to do.

We munched our supper and were joined by a photography enthusiast from West Virginia and his horse trainer wife. The four of us enjoyed diagonal conversations (oriented by professions) across our shared picnic table.

At another picnic table rest stop we were treated to meet two gals from Kentucky who work among the finest stables in that state. I sat mostly silent while three gals discussed horsy stuff in a language that, to me, might as well have been native Mongolian.

At our evening’s featured event a very muscular Russian performer, Alexandre Nevidonski, rode his American Saddlebred mount while he did a spectacular aerial event using a draped curtain to perform from his saddle at stunning heights above the Coliseum floor.

That’s him in the small picture performing an Olympic style gymnastic move while his horse Mammuth stands proudly below.

In the bottom photo they salute their thundering ovation.

While wandering to the car late in the evening, appropriately attired (I thought) in an OSU ballcap, I was amused to recall my chapeau was outnumbered that day by at least a ratio of 10,000 to one cowboy hats.

I am now the proud owner of one of them as well.

_______________________
(1) The lead photo was shot at 1/20th of a second at f/5.6 with an ISO sensitivity of 800 under venue spot lights while panning the camera in the direction of the horse’s, high-speed travel.