AZ Horse Festival

Hey everyone. Well, I finally have a few moments to blog our recent show, because just did the Arizona Horse Festival at Westworld in Scottsdale. Three days of demos and two night time shows called "Equi-Dance". Tommie performed 5 acts in the show. I was set to do the Chariot Race, but one of my horses, Maugua had a stone bruise on his foot and I didn't want to risk him getting injured during the race. So, we came us with a new act, the Chariot versus Roman Riding act. Tommie comes out and races against Jon Wearley our chariot driver. This is at the end of the show, so the crowd is very loud and cheering for either Tommie or Jon (also know in the act as "maximus wreckamus". After the show Tommie signed photos and programs for the audience. He was there for over and hour after the show end. We also were selling the first lot of Pokerjoe Breyer models we got. We sold all 36! Tommie signed every single one. I also got the news that Cavalia is coming back to Scottsdale after touring Europe for the past 2 years. On Saturday night, Normand, the producer of Cavalia was there to give away tickets and gifts from the show. My husband and I haven't seen him since we left Cavalia after Santa Monica in 2005. He said the European tour went well and that Fred and Magali are coming back to do Scottsdale starting Feb 2009 and Montreal in April. I'm hoping to be able to see it, to see how it changed from when we conceptualized it in 2003.
Thanks to Lise Streit and her family for producing the AZ show. We are looking forward to next year and building it up to be a huge show. It has a great location and incredible facility, so make plans to come next year. http://www.festivalofhorses.com/
We left for Az last week on Tuesday at 5am from Sterling, IL. We hit really bad ice storms in IA and Kansas. We arrived in Scottsdale Thursday at 1pm, got the horses set, set up our booth and did the rehearsal. For our way home, we had to go south through Texas, since I-40 was iced over and Amarillo was below freezing! We are currently at the Pecos TX Rodeo grounds with 8 of our horses and heading for Dallas today. We'll stay overnight there where it will be in the 50's and then head for the last 900 miles home when the weather clears on Wednesday. There is ice and snow all day today through Illinois and Missouri, so we're taking it slow to make sure we don't get stuck in a storm or bad roads. We counted 52 trucks and cars off the road when we drove to AZ because of the icy roads. We were doing 25 mph most of the way to keep it safe. It was 1,800 miles to AZ and it will be 2000 to return, so we'll be home Thursday just in time to put on the Winter Barrel Series at Double G this weekend. Gotta get ready for the travel to Dallas. Thanks for those for came out to see us and the new fans of Tommie. We'll have a new website and videos coming soon. Ride Fast... Take Chances!