AgWired

I had to wait until late in the show to get a few minutes with Keri LeForce the show manager. She’s a staff member of the ApHC and for the show lives here on site for almost a month making sure everything is set up and running smoothly.

Keri has been managing the show for 11 years now and from what I can see, she’s got this thing down pat. She has to hire and work with all the contractors and service providers as well as staff and the everyday things like scheduling workers and even playing music over the audio system.

Next year’s show will be in Jackson, MS and I’m sure that’s going to be fun to set this whole thing up in a new city. For one thing all the exhibitors will have new barns to have stalls assigned in. Keri says they work very hard to make sure that the assigned area fits and works well for the exhibitors.

You can listen to my interview with Keri here: appaloosa-national-07-keri.mp3

I’ve been wanting to speak to some of our international visitors and got my chance finally this morning. I just happened to run into these two members of “Team Austria.”

They were enjoying a beautiful morning here on the last day of the show.

As you’ll be able to hear in my interview with Anna Marie (right – I hope I have that name right) language can be challenging. I think she speaks pretty good English though.

They said they’re here for the whole show and have even had some time to relax and make friends.

They own appaloosas back home in Austria and are involved in pleasure and trail riding.

One of the reasons they came to the National Show was to learn more about show activities and to look at horses. I think that means they’d like to find some good American appaloosas to take back home.

You can listen to my interview with Team Austria here: appaloosa-national-07-austria.mp3

The Appaloosa Horse Club has a new president. He’s Eric Beené from Mississippi.

I got to visit with Eric in between committee meetings today to find out how he feels about his new position and what his goals are for the coming year. Eric says that marketing is a big focus and that he hopes to see a reversal of the decline in membership and registrations.

You can hear it directly from Eric in my interview with him here: appaloosa-national-07-beene.mp3

Other members of the Executive Committee include:

Larry Baker, Vice President
Debby Letham, Chair, Rules Committee
Laura Lyon, Chair, Planning & Review Committee
Jack Zuidema, Chair, Finance Committee
Bill Thiel, Chair, Marketing Committee

With his voice I wonder how farm broadcasting lost a guy like Denny Oviatt. Denny used to be a farm broadcaster in South Dakota before getting into show announcing. After listening to him for several days he’s sure good at what he does.

Denny is one of the ring announcers here at the National Appaloosa Horse Show. I spoke with him after his shift today.

One of the things he says is very important and challenging is pronouncing people’s names correctly. Having done some announcing myself I can sure echo that. In my interview he tells a few anecdotes from his time announcing horse races. He also says that there is opportunity for people who are interested in announcing as a career. I would recommend they look Denny up and I’m sure he can point them in the right direction to get started.

Learn a little bit about ring announcing from Denny in my interview with him here: appaloosa-national-07-oviatt.mp3

Today the committees of the Appaloosa Horse Club are meeting but the show is still going on at the same time. I’m going to try to find out what’s going on in those committees but in the meantime I keep running into some very interesting people like Laura Brest who’s another ApHC Hall of Famer enjoying the show here in Oklahoma City.

I sat down with Laura this morning and learned how she got interested in these horses. As you’ll hear her say in the interview, she was out riding past a neighbor’s home and saw these colored horses and wondered what they were. Well she found out and after getting one from him to show she was hooked on Appaloosas.

Laura says she’s done everything there is to do like breeding, showing, judging and training. It was very easy for me to see why she’s in the Hall of Fame and I learned a lot from her. She’s a great resource for anyone who would like to know more about the breed. She has always been supportive of youth and thinks the breed makes for a great youth horse. She says that if you get them interested when they’re young they’ll like them for life.

You can listen to my interview with Laura here: appaloosa-national-07-brest.mp3

If you had asked me before today I would have told you that a farrier has something to do with horseshoes but that’s about all I could have told you. Now I know a lot more about it. That’s because I met Kirk today in between jobs where he’s set up as a show farrier in one of the barns. You can find a good definition of what a farrier does on Wikipedia if you’re curious.

It sounds like Kirk has been busy here at the National Show. He is very passionate about what he does and that comes through when you talk to him. He says that having a lame horse come to him and go away sound is one of the things that gives him the most satisfaction in his job. Besides this show Kirk also works the World Show and ApHC trail rides.

You can listen to my interview with Kirk here: appaloosa-national-07-knowlton.mp3