Wartrace Horse Show shaping up well

For more than a century now, the area's finest saddle horses have shown their stuff in Wartrace. It's a small town, but a big show and there will be hundreds of visitors on hand Saturday to see them work.

Roy Ferguson Jr., the former volunteer fire chief for Wartrace, stayed on as the show's chairman.

"Do something 30 years and it's in your blood," he said.

He said the show is shaping up well this year.

"Everything's looking a whole lot better. People have been very supportive of the industry and the inspection process is going a whole lot better," he said. "It's looking to be a real good show."

One thing that will be new this year is free parking.

"The city charged the parking, so we're basically paying the city. We're renting the parking lots from the city," Ferguson said. "It was just one of those things everybody complained about and we thought we could do something about it."

The free parking includes Jernigan Field, at the city park and the community center.

"He's still a Wartrace person," Nancy Edwards, who helps with the show, said of Ferguson. "He can't get away from it."

Edwards said recent attendance has been good.

"It's such a traditional show, it gets a lot of support from the local people and the horse show industry," she said. "We have an excellent judge this year, so we're expecting good entries and a good show."

The judge will be Rollie Beard of Lewisburg, who is also one of the five Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration judges this year. Beard has been chosen five times to judge in the Celebration.

There are 27 classes scheduled for Saturday night, including four Riders Cup classes: Two-year-old walking stallions; Three-year-old walking stallions; Four-year-old mares, stallions and geldings; and the walking horse championship open.

The Wartrace Horse Show is the longest running one-night walking horse show in history, and the town is known as the "Cradle of the Tennessee Walking Horse" and home of Strolling Jim, the first World Grand Champion Walking Horse.

Because of the show's long tradition, the organizers like to keep the history alive on the pages of the program.

"It is our goal to record the contributions of not only the well known members of our horse show community, but also the contributions of the not-so-well-known, but vitally important, people who were a part of the larger success story," said Edwards in a press release. "Each year in our program, we include pictures of show highlights from the previous year."

IF YOU GO

The Wartrace Horse Show begins at 6 p.m. at Jernigan Field. Tickets are $5, with children under 12 admitted free. Box seats have been sold out. There will be supper available for those who come hungry, including country ham, barbecue, and homemade pies and cakes.