A grand day out

Here I go again, putting off the proper pedigree topics in favour of other stuff… I was busy doing things with my family during half term last week, so pedigrees have been neglected, I’m afraid. But one of our trips was to the Surrey County Show, so I thought I’d share some photos of that with you instead.

Going to an agricultural show has to be one of my very favourite things to do, ever since I was introduced to the Great Yorkshire show at a tender age. Despite living in Surrey for about 17 years we had never been to the county show, mostly because it’s always on the Bank Holiday Monday which falls in half term and we’ve usually been away. This year however we decided on a ‘staycation’, so took the opportunity to go.

Surrey is, to be honest, not the most agricultural of counties, and this is reflected in the scale of the show: it’s one day only, and not nearly as big as some of the county shows which have their own designated showgrounds. However, it still provided plenty of variety, from motorcycle displays through to wood-bodging, taking in on the way what I was most interested in: a wide variety of horses and other animals!

For example, there was a whole section of show classes for donkeys:

I spent quite a while watching these, as they're not something you often get a chance to observe. It was fascinating to see the differences in size and type, and trying to predict which one would be the winner!

One of the attractions in the main arena was the ponies' scurry driving, which is always fun to watch:

And then there were cobs, which are one of the glories of the British showring:

When the American sculptor Karen Gerhardt was over here recently, she was inspired to create a cob, and this was the result. He's going to be available in resin and china, which is very exciting. I took several pictures of this fella, because of his lovely patterning:

How about a Roundie painted like this?

British native (Mountain & Moorland) ponies are among my biggest favourites, so I spent some time around their ring as well. Here's a Shetland:

and because they're rare and I'm painting one at the moment, I made my family wait around in the rain which set in, so I could see the Exmoors:

This handsome chap is called Achnesgiu, by Liqueur.

However, what I love about agricultural shows is not just the horses, but all the other livestock and interesting things on view. Who knew, for instance, that there are eggs this colour?

or blotchy goats?

and then there was the parade of prizewinning cattle to top it all off:

All in all, a grand day out!