This message is from: Starfire Farm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Hopefully, your little parade has some rules to help keep people safer. > Amen! > We do not enter any parade that allows candy to be thrown from the entrants. >Nothing worse than a few hundred kiddies diving for those 10 year old TOOTSIE >ROLLS under your horses feet, while kicking, screaming and gouging a few >hundred of their friends and sibblings for better positions. > > Believe me, this happens! People along the route have no clue how dangerous things can be, and how quickly they can happen. In our small town Berthoud parade, we've also had local kids hop on their dirt bikes and race up and down a portion of the parade route, daring the cops to catch them. Lots of fun for the horses! >We have had Pot Belly Pigs dressed up and pulling wagons.....Camels and >an Elephant ( they SMELL really really bad says my Fjords ), a lion walking on >a leash, Llamas and a tame Long Horned Steer being ridden by a Buckeroo guy >with a trick rope. Thankfully for HIM, he didnt try to rope us. > > What else would you expect for So. California? In the Parker area (south of Denver) we also have an annual carriage club Christmas parade that only allows horses and horse drawn vehicles. The years that we participated, there have been at least three runaways and people falling off of their horses. One team ended up running through a fence and standing over a poor woman who was sitting in a lawn chair behind the fence, thinking it was a safe place to sit! The organizers have done the best that they can, planning escape routes and planting emergency handlers, complete with leadropes, at strategic locations along the way. We've had the honor of carrying Santa Claus at the very end of the parade, so thankfully weren't involved in any of the wrecks, but still had to ask the army of street sweepers (the big, motor-driven truck kind) to back off! The sound of the metal brushes on pavement was almost more than the horse could handle. I guess my point is, even when everyone does a really good job of organizing the parade, controlling the bystanders, and preparing their horses, stuff still happens. Take time to prepare yourself and your horse, and have a good insurance policy! Beth The FjordHorse List archives can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw
