From Baseball Field to Horse Show Ring and Back - Part Two

Continuing on from yesterday's post about the baseball field that was also a horse show ring. Apologies for some of the photos in today's post. They are very old and I didn't want to remove them from their photo album to scan, so I simply took photos of the photos.

The baseball field at Columbian Park was the site of the biggest horse show between Indianapolis and Chicago for forty years or so.

It went by several names (Lafayette Horse Show, Lafayette Society Horse Show, and the Lafayette Charity Horse Show), but Leslie and I simply called it the Columbian Park Horse Show.

This is the class list from the 1973 program in the previous photo. You can see how the name differs. (I showed my Quarter Horse, Cee Hunt, in the 1973 show.)

The baseball field as it was when it was used for horse shows. This is prior to the extensive renovations it underwent two years ago. (Photo from Google Images.)

Trucks and trailers would roll onto the grounds surrounding the baseball field and park around the attractions. See those stairs to the left?

Those are for the Big Dipper slide. Can you imagine parking your trailer around that and unloading your horses while kids are going up and down that slide, screaming all the way? Somehow it worked for us! (Photo from Google Images.)

The show encompassed as many disciplines as it could. (Heading toward first base! Haha!)

And it was my first exposure to live gaited horses.  (Rounding to second base now.)

This is Hot Cotton. He was an Appaloosa and Leslie and I looked forward to watching him jump every year. I even have a model named after him.

We also looked forward to when the English riders would be asked to hand gallop. Oh, the dust that would kick up, but we didn't mind!

The night show always began with a parade of colors under the lights. By this time, Leslie and I were hot, sweaty, and dusty, but we always stayed for the night show.

Leslie and I would furiously record the names of the winners in the program but we couldn't always keep up with the announcer. (Besides, we wanted to see the winners, not just write down their names!)

The pitcher's mound was where a table with awards was set up along with the announcer and an organ. Throughout the show, and especially when the horses were cantering, the organist would play along with them.

It just felt right to hear organ music on the field again during the Aviators game.

As I was going through my old Columbian Park Horse Show photos and programs, I noticed something, something I had tried to find via Google but had gotten no results. It's a breed of horses that was very, very local (although there was a registry for them) and I don't think any of them exist any more.

More on that breed tomorrow. Stay 'tooned!