Keystone bustling with activity

Fillies, colts, stallions and mares that are at the top of their game have completed the first day of competition in the largest Arabian horse show in Canada, which is being held in Brandon.

Canada’s National Arabian Championship is free to attend and runs until Aug. 16 at the Keystone Centre.

There are so many competitors, said one of the show organizers, Tex Kam, that additional stalls had to be set up on the east side of the Keystone’s parking lot.

“We’re at 325 horses entered,” Kam said. “So, we have six temporary stables outside with 180 horses there, and the rest in the other barns.

“So, total, we have 550 stalls because every horse needs almost another half a stall for their feed, tack, saddle and everything else,” said Kam, who is the vice-president of the National Arabian Breed Society, which organized the event.

Inside one of the barns was central Florida’s Regan Wallace, who drove a day and a half to get to the Wheat City along with the owner-operator of Chestnut Hill Arabians and their 12 horses.

“This is my first time in Canada, and it’s great so far,” Wallace said. “I was entered in the purebreds this morning and I got reserve (second) in my class, so I got a pretty rose garland.

“My next class is with a half-Arabian for the sport horse in hand.”

In that class, the horse is led by its trainer and judged on many aspects including the alignment of its legs, its balance, overall athletic structure and how the horse carries itself.

It has been six years since the national equestrian show has been held in Brandon. It was held at the Keystone Centre from 2011 to 2019, but was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And for the first time this year, the show is being recognized by the Arabian Horse Association, which means that horses and riders compete for points.

Competitors are also divided by amateur and open status, said American Jessica Simon. She’s from Elk, Wash., which is about 198 kilometres south of the British Columbia-United States border.

“If you’re a professional, you can only ride in the open classes,” Simon said.

“And if you’re an amateur, you have to certify that you don’t train horses and don’t accept money for lessons and things like that.

“So as an amateur, you show against your level versus having to show against a professional.

“It gives all of us amateurs a chance,” she said as she laughed.

Crossing into British Columbia was a breeze, Simon added, even though they were delayed because of missing paperwork for one of the horses.

“We were stuck at the border for about an hour,” Simon said. “I had to call the vet and have them resend the document to my email. Thankfully, I had just enough service to get it there.

“The guy was so nice. He said, ‘I’ll print this out for you and give you a copy, so you can have it on the way back.’”

The last two years, the show was held in Red Deer, Alta., which was too far away for Jordan LeFever to travel from Roberts, Wis., about 40 kilometres from St. Paul, Minn.

He and his dad own a training centre, so they will ride in the professional classes — and are registered in about 20, he said.

“I trained this horse for the western pleasure class,” LeFever said as he stood next to a 10-year-old purebred Arabian from California.

“Western pleasure is elegant, fancy and slow moving. You want their head nice and low and set and then just a nice and slow speed,” he said.

“We don’t have any English horses, but those are the ones that lift their feet up really tall and move very powerful. So compared to that, western is lot slower.”

A slow pace is exactly what Jada Reed wanted at this year’s show. She runs Reed Training in Chilliwack, B.C., and usually brings 25 horses, but brought a lot fewer to Brandon.

“Just nine,” Reed said. “That’s like a holiday. It’s been really nice. We’ve actually had some down time to enjoy ourselves. Normally it’s from four in the morning to 10 or 11 at night, non-stop.”

It’s also important to Reed that her horses are relaxed and rested in between competition to make sure they’re happy, she said.

“The horse will tell you what it wants to do, and then you need to adapt to it,” she said.

While Reed and her team’s goal is to win, she said they all have a good attitude that if they put in the work, the rewards will come.

“I’ve never been a ribbon-chaser,” Reed said.

“I chase the ride. I like good rides. If you chase the ride, the ribbons come, and if you chase the ribbons, they don’t.”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

» enviromichele.bsky.social