This message is from: "Ron & Sherrie Dayton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Patty Petersen is absolutely right, Nordicfest and Libby have always bent over backwards to accommodate the Fjord Horse people. Dennis & Marge Johnson, Shirley Anderson & I met with the Libby Nordicfest President, The Libby Chamber of Commerce and Lincoln county parks & rec. in March of this year to talk about what we needed to do for each other. It was a very productive, positive meeting. We are all aware that we need each other. They want us as part of their celebration and I personally feel that we wouldn't have as big a show with out Nordicfest. I think Patty made another good point too about the media, the entire problem has probably been blown out of proportion. Its just like "the Aryans" in North Idaho, everyone in the country thinks we're all a bunch of Nazi sympathizers and skin heads because that's all that's ever printed or put on TV in the news. Mike & Jean are right about the bigger draft horse people not liking Fjords because we have beat them in the weight pulls, what happens is the winner of the light weight division can move up to the middle weight division and the winner of the middle weight can move up to the heavy weight division. I saw Martin Fraker one year pulling in the heavy weight division because he'd won the Light weight & Middle weight divisions, I think he finally pulled his team when he reached about 4th place in the heavy weight division and the crowd gave him a standing ovation. The crowd really was into rooting for "the little guys" and I think that's what sealed our fate with the Sandpoint Drafthorse people. As we all know the Fjords do draw a crowd wherever they are. After that we're not allowed to compete, what they've done is put weight restrictions on their definitions of what is considered a "Draft horse. I don't know of a Fjord that weighs enough to meet the criteria. As to using other parts of the grounds during the Draft horse show, that's out of the question, the entire fair/show grounds are used for the Draft horse show, the barns are full of horses, plus lots of portable pens, there are several buildings full of either vendors or stuff for the auction on Monday. Its a huge 4 day show. They auction horses, wagons, sleighs, harness, farm equipment, a lot of it is inside some of the smaller barns and the wagons, equipment etc are spread out for display in various locations around the grounds. We've been trying to get back into the show for several years but the Drafthorse show committee won't budge. As far as they're concerned, Fjords are not a Draft horse. We've even asked if we could just do something like have the Fjords bring the Judges into the arena or pull the shuttle out in the parking lot, but the answer is always no. You can bring Fjords to be auctioned, but thats all. Sorry this a bit long, Sherrie Dayton
