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July 23, 2009

Gearing Up For the Most Exciting Week of the Year

The days leading up to the Youth Nationals Arabian and Half-Arabian Championship Horse Show are always filled with a kind of excitement unique to any other AHA National Championship. It's an excitement that can only really be generated by hundreds of today's best and brightest youth exhibitors and the trainers, parents, peers and community members who are eager to watch them shine. The entire Youth Nationals experience can be a combination of competition, education, youth activities, shopping and even a few mini-vacations along the way.

The week is filled with a mix of world-class competition and countless activities for the kiddos that any adult can also find enjoying. It starts off all business with the Arabian Horse Youth Association Convention, Friday, July 24. The leaders of tomorrow will vote on five resolutions this year. Competition begins Saturday, July 25, and that afternoon hundreds will gather to hear the advice of two experts, Andrew Sellman and Vicki Humphrey, at the Arabian Professional and Amateur Horse Association clinics. As classes continue all week, there is plenty to entertain exhibitors and anyone else who wanders on to the grounds at Expo New Mexico-look for the Parade of Regions, a Stick Horse Workshop and Contest, the Flying Pigs Fundraiser, a T.A.I.L. (Total Arabian Interaction & Learning), Ice Cream Social, a Guitar Hero Tournament and more. Come Friday, July 31, the semi-final and final classes will be in full-swing as exhibitors vie for the prize title of National Championship.

Competitors and spectators making the trip to Albuquerque may want to stop on their way home and see one of the most historically rich towns New Mexico has to offer. Santa Fe is about 60 miles from Albuquerque and has ancient Native American ruins, Spanish Colonial churches, mining towns and remnants of America's Wild West frontier days. Your family can see a civil war battle site, a cattle ranch that once belonged to a 1930s Hollywood star, or more than 200 galleries and a dozen museums. If you head southeast you can pass through the Chihuahuan Desert and Guadalupe Mountains. Located about 300 miles southeast of Albuquerque, Carlsbad Caverns National Park contains 113 caves formed when sulfuric acid dissolved the surrounding limestone. These caves are some of the largest in North America. Fifty-two miles east of Las Cruces New Mexico lay the White Sands National Monument, which preserves a major portion of wave-like dunes of gypsum sand. The dunes engulf 275 square miles of desert and are said to be one of the world's great natural wonders.

Whether you're a spectator or a competitor, Youth Nationals and the trip to and from can be a fun addition to your summer plans. Check out the June/July issue of Modern Arabian Horse for more information on Youth Nationals activities and things to do while you're in New Mexico.