What’s better than one Fancsali among us? TWO of course! Sister Beth Fancsali threw a birthday bash for brother Greg Fancsali at Merriehill Farm on Thursday evening to celebrate Greg’s 40th birthday. Both Greg and Beth are longtime Morgan owners and exhibitors and are great sports in the ring. We’ll see what kind of a sport Beth is when Greg throws her a milestone birthday party the next time!
We had the two Kim’s Bellegante sons back to back on Saturday in hand, and on Wednesday we had a duet in the three year old hunter pleasure division. Both Sandra Nelson’s World Champion Renegade Rose, as well as Dwayne Brittell’s Reserve World Champion Kane Creek Clairvoyant are out of daughters of Intrepid Melissa, one of Art Perry and Jim Wigle’s wonderful Bar-T Invader daughters. Another example of good breeding carrying forward!
And in keeping with our doubles theme, Jane Steffenhagen and Jackie Sweeney’s homebred World Champion HyLee’s Goldsmith doubled his roses with the talented young Alyssa Wick when he captured his second consecutive World Champion Park Saddle title, this time in the Youth division following on the heels of last year's Jr. Exhibitor division win. Alyssa comes by her talent naturally, being the daughter of trainers Colleen and Lyle Wick of Hardwood Creek in Minnesota. Even after pulling a shoe at the end of the second trot, the beautiful son of Pot of Gold finished the class and then walked out of the ring proudly flaunting his roses and wares.
Yesterday, we wrapped up the Dressage World Champion High Points, today we crowned the Trail World Champions. And now the Reining horses have decended upon us and things are just slipping and sliding and spinning all over the place in the new Arena 8. The new arena is just the BEST place to watch these terrific athletes, so much better than the old arena where you had to look around the pipe gates and really couldn’t see these horses work. Now we have bleacher seating all down the side and the lighting is great, you can see every horse’s complete pattern with little effort. It also seems a bit closer to the coliseum, for those of us that might need or want to run back and forth to catch classes in both arenas.
We started out talking about doubles, but there was one horse on the fairgrounds this week that can now claim SIX World titles in one of our most competitive divisions, Ladies Park Harness. Lifetime Morgan owner, breeder, exhibitor and judge Helen Crawford has been at the reins for every one of these wins with her phenomenal mare, HVK Ancient Cry (HVK Make ‘Em Cry x Nobelle). Her first title in this division was secured in 2002 and was followed by a duplicate win in 2003. Then she started her next winning streak in 2005 and has worn the title and roses out of the gate here in Oklahoma every year since, making it four consecutive years and six titles over seven years. To make this even more amazing, this incredible mare has also been producing foals for Bill & Helen Crawford’s Boston Morgan Farm this entire time, producing seven embryo transfer foals between 2003 and 2007. Bob Hughes at Blackridge RJH has been the trainer behind this historic mare for all of her west coast career. Congratulations to the Boston Morgan Family!
Not to be outdone by the distaff side, the Ladies Pleasure Driving division also had its own hero in Tom & Stephanie Connors’ Festival Calypso. This typey and effervescent gelding racked up his 10th World title tonight at the age of 13. This amazing gelding started his OKC career as a two year old and has never looked back. Congratulations to the Connors family on their tremendous champion.
When I left the fairgrounds tonight at 11:00 pm, not only was there dancing and drinking in the SkyLoft Lounge (my name for the exhibitor’s lounge over the in gate), but they were still battling it out in the Show Arena with the UPHA equitation riders. They would definitely not be finishing until sometime after midnight, which begs the question, Do their trainers actually train these kids in the evening once in a while? To make sure they can stay awake long enough to perform their patterns? Will see if I can find you an answer for tomorrow’s blog.
- Tami Johnson