Dorlin Haste Memorial

On Sunday we went to the Dorlin Haste Memorial horse show in Walla Walla, Wa.  It was an open schooling show at the Maxson-Box stables indoor arena.

I was very impressed with the arenas and facilities at the farm!  There was a nice BIG main indoor riding arena with a spacious show office, great sound system, and antique church pews for spectators at the show.  There were two good sized warm-up arenas located at the front and also the back of the indoor arena, (complete with sprinkler systems to keep the dust to a minimum), and also one large track style arena located near the main road for doing cart or park/show hack style workouts.  The footing in all of the arenas was EXCELLENT! 

The Maxson-Box stables used to be a full service saddlebred showing and breeding farm, so the layout of the facilities made sense after I figured out what the farm was tailor made for.  The one thing that I will give saddlebred breeders is that they are usually very CLASSY about their setups.  The farm was very well kept.  The hedges were trimmed, the grass was freshly mowed, the looping gravel roads were smooth as silk to drive on, and I couldn't find so much as a "single hint of a pebble" in any of the riding arenas.  It was great.
The main barns on the farm were older constructed buildings - but in good working order with nice equipment.  There was a small hotwalker in the main barn, along with a fully stocked farrier station, tackroom, clothes changing room, restroom, full hay storage, and several stalls for boarding customers horses.  Several of the horses at the show were boarders at the barn, (mostly QH's and Arabs).

In the office of the main indoor arena was a tribute to the late Mrs. Aggie Maxson.  Mrs. Maxson's show photos and awards were very lovely, and it was great to see her achievements displayed.  It was very clear that she had great pride in her saddlebreds and was a fantastic show lady.  In the upper left and right corners of the office were award coolers that she had earned at the Cow Palace in California in 1979 and 1982.



Tommy and I won one of the english classes in the morning and they awarded first places with glass mugs full of tootsie rolls.  =:)  We took a picture in front of the main barn. 

What you can't see in the photo is that there is a lady to the left of us doing jumping jacks trying to get his attention - literally.  Tommy has had so many pictures taken of him that it's gotten to the point where he just doesn't care anymore.  It's almost nearly impossible to get his ears forward for photos.  I've noticed that other exhibitors have the same problem with their show horses.  They get so desensitized to weird sounds, new environments, scary objects, and other miscellaneous things, that it's virtually impossible to get them "alert" for snapshots.  Which is okay with me.  I'd rather have my horse relaxed with a "could-give-a-crap-less attitude", rather than acting snorty and being an idiot. 

Craig and I are talking about getting a sparkly wand or a ground mirror for future photo ops...