Oklahoma Gypsy & Drum Horse Club

Hey everyone, the class schedule for the Celtic Festival is almost done.  Marilee is adding some jumping classes as the Celtic Festival is insured to cover the riders.  Kelsey, could you send me your email address so that I can send you the flyer and the schedule?

Classes will be $25, stalls $45, and tack stalls are $20 (but may have to double up.)  Placings right now are scheduled for 1-3 places rather than 6 until we figure out how many people are interested.  I have two people who have already contacted me for their horses.

Darla
I need a driving pattern for carts and in hand for the trail classes.  If we need something built, please get with Jack at 580-370-0492 so he can get it done. 

I still need gifts from local tack shops and will need to have the flyers hung in these places to promote the show.

Marsha, thank you for all your input.  Since this is a Celtic show, I don’t want to make the halter classes more advanced by showing  “get of dam and get of sire” unless it is done for all breeds.  I think it would be more horses in less classes that would show up just to do one class.  (example, the mother of the babies, only doing that one class and then standing all day in a hot stall.)  I would like to see the horses that come, do a lot of classes.

Please don’t think that I am throwing any ones ideas out, I am not, but we have to be practical for our first show try to get as many classes out there in general and still be able to do it in two days.

The judge is confirmed, the barns are confirmed.

Please contact me at my job email at chicks@uct.com

Thanks

Chris

Hey Everyone…………..

Brenda and Jack would like to have a Christmas Party.  Anyone up to host it or know somewhere where we could meet and have dinner and a meeting? 

Marsha and Kelsey are posting some new members to our group, Randy and Linda.  Please welcome them into the group and update them on what has been going on with your Gypsy horses and training.

Brenda, I just wanted to say again, how awesome you and Milady did at the Lazy E!  Great Job!

Darla, congrats on the win!!  Great job by you and Jill.

Randy, when you get a chance, I need to talk to you about some steel lettering that needs to be machined.  By the way, I got Garet’s kids home, wrecked his trailer and blew up Jack’s  Dodge.  Pretty good for one night, don’t you think??? 

Send emails to the house at jonihicks@sbcglobal.net or call me at 580-370-5030.

See ya all soon!

Chris Hicks

Hi All,

Meeting called to order at Oklahoma State Fair, barn 2, 7:45pm, September 18th, 2009.

Members in attendance:

 4c’s Ranch, EZ-L Ranch, Chinkapin Ranch, Autum Ranch, Odessa Ranch, Darla and Maggie, Elliot, Simona, Whitney, Flying G Ranch

Old Business:  Venue for June Show

Decision to keep the venue the same has been confirmed for the Payne County Fairgrounds in Stillwater, OK.  The Celtic Festival has confirmed that we have full use of the arena, and the stalls.  We can use all three areas, if we need more stalls and warm up space.

Discussion continues on what to do with the stalls.  Deidre of Autumn Ranch had attended a show that had open stalls and found it difficult to manage with the horses being able to touch each other, especially with the stallions and mares not being strategically placed.  Jack and Chris will go and measure the stalls and see how much material we will need to cover the stalls to make these usable during the Draft Horse Sale in October.

Classes for the Show: We will all chose the classes we would like to see.  Keep in mind that if you know any Halfinger, Shetland or celtic bred owners that would like to attend, get their input on the classes they would like to see in their breed.  Contact with the Halflinger people will be made at the Draft Horse Sale in October.  Open classes should be available as well. 

Darla and I will have the flyer ready to promote the show shortly after we come back from Indiana and she the Tulsa Fair.

Everyone is asked to contact their local feed store or tack store for promotional items and/or raffle items for the show.

New Business:

The T-Shirts are ready and will be at the Indiana Show.  All others can be picked up at the next meeting or you can contact Jack Hicks to have them mailed to you once payment is made.  Jack also has the list of the pricing for the shirts per group, ranch or family.  An email was also sent out to that effect.  Contact me if you do not have the email.

The Flying G Ranch in Sand Springs (Sapulpa?) are offering us the opportunity to have a PLAYDAY at their facility.  Let’s all take a look at our show schedules and see when we can fit it in.  We may also want to include some of the gaming classes in our show.  This would be the perfect opportunity to test our skills at barrels, poles and patterns.

Congratulations to all who won at the OK State Fair and a Special Big Win for Simona on Argyle who championed our club with all BLUE RIBBONS.

Next year we really should champion this show and get more horses involved and have a bigger venue.  Marc Pankow is willing to work with us to make the show bigger and better. 

Thank you to all who stayed to watch Shrek in his story performance.  And thank you Simona for warming him up for me.  You did a great job.

Congratulations to Darla on her sale of her Drum Filly, Lady.  We are sad to see her go but hopefully we will see her again at the shows.

Good luck to everyone attending the Heartland Feathered Classic and those of you going to the Tulsa State Fair!!!

Could someone please offer to do the next meeting host and let me know?

Thanks all, show on and show proud!

Chris Hicks

Hello Everyone and welcome to the August Meeting  Publication.

On August 22nd, we all met at the C4’s Ranch.  Brenda and Randy have a lovely facility and it was a great place to meet.

Chris from the Blanchard Fire Dept gave a small speech on fire safety in and around our barns and horses, noting the facts of compost piles smoking and starting fires as well as the fire hazards of stored hay.  It was very informational.

Happenings:

State Fair in OKC will open its doors for all participants on Sept. 15th.  First day of the Fair is Sept. 17th along with the first day of the Gypsy and Draft Horse Show.  Classes start at 9am on Friday.

The Heartland Feathered Classic in Indiana is the week following the Fair, Sept. 25-27th in Danville, In.

October 2-4th, Karen Scholls will be in Joplin, MO at the White Knight Arena.  You can take a horse or you can audit the class.  Brenda to attend, anyone else wanting to go, contact Brenda for information.

Craig Cameron will be at the White Knight Arena the following week, October 9-11th.

October 9-10th is the Tulsa State Fair.  There is no Gypsy show at this venue however Drum Horses have been invited to show in the Draft Horse Show.  There will be vaulting at the Fair on Oct 9th at 6pm and on the 10th at 11am.  Contact Darla Ryder for further information.

Perry, GA-October 13-15 will have its big Gypsy Show, see Gypsy horse website for entry fees and availability.

What is shaping up to be the National Gypsy Show, down in Austin, TX is October 24th.

Guthrie, OK, Women in Horses Expo will be November 6-8th at the Lazy E Arena.  Their website is currently open and you can contact the arena as well.  Brenda cautions to be aware of the person you talk to and be sure you understand what they ask of you once they have your money.

January 15th through Feb 7th, 2010 is the Fort Worth Livestock show.  There are 65 spaces for Gypsy horses.  If you plan to attend, be sure to get your entries in quickly, spaces will fill up fast.

Wichita, KS, Feb 12-14th, Expo for all horses.

Other shows not dated at this time are the Spring Classic in TN, the Summer Classic in McKinney, TX for 2010.

SHOW UPDATES

Katie Briegge and I went to see Bridlewood in OKC about their faciltiy for our show.  We “spoke” with Elizabeth Lee, the owner and manager of the facilty.  It was kind of heartbreaking.  The facility could be wonderful but is currently not show worthy for what we need.  Elizabeth offered to erect portable stalls covered with a tent in an open field.  There would be no warm up arena and we would only have the arena for one day.  No  inside stalls available.  To say the least, this is not what was discussed on the phone with her and pretty much, a waste of time for Katie and I.

After visiting Bridlewood, we went to the Lazy E.  We toured the facility, and it is gorgeous.  But the drawback of having to walk 1/4-1/2 mile from the stalls to the arena in Feb or March is disconcerting.  There is a warm up arena but it is outside.  However, if we rented the entire arena, there is enough room for a show arena, a hold pattern arena and an on deck arena.  The cost is $1800 per day.  To keep costs down, we would have to have over 60 horses at our first show.  A long shot at best.

Brenda and Randy agreed with my thought to have the show as planned originally at the Payne County Expo in conjunction with the Celtic Festival.  The arena is free to us, as well as the stalls.  We could tarp the back walls and possibly the sides of the stalls to keep the horses seperated.  If we got 30-40 horses for our first show, we would be able to cover the costs of the tarps and use them again.  Everyone agreed to proceed with this plan.  I will contact the EXPO this week and get it rolling.

I need everyone to contact some sponsors and/or vendors and get them to donate prizes or fund classes.  We need to decide what classes we are going to have and keep in mind that the halflingers and connemara’s will also be invited to this, as Celtic is the theme.  I will also contact the trophy center in Edmond and see what ribbons will cost us and do a generic printing so we could use the left overs again.

Our meeting was ajourned and we went outside to see the latest and greatest from our vaulters.

The Gypsies from the 4C Ranch and Simona were in rare form in practicing their vaulting under the tutledge of Darla Ryder.  All the girls did fantastic.  Houtie (I hope I spelled it right) is a magnificent addition to the vaulting team and does great!  With Maggie at the helm and Darla at the stern, all the girls did great!  After practicing, the dads and spectators were asked to join in.  Congratulations Cory and Elliot as being the brave dads to get up there and DO YOUR THING!  Jack and Randy, please practice, you will be asked to participate in the next meeting!    Just kidding, kind of.

Simona’s team and the Flying G Ranch in Sand Springs would like to host a play day for us and that would be great.  Don’t think I have ever seen a Gypsy run barrels!!  HA.  We could do a mini horse show and trail classes as well.

Thank you Brenda and Randy for hosting the meeting.  Our next meeting will be at the OK State Fair on Friday evening once all the classes are finished.  Blender will be available, someone needs to bring the rocks and alcohol!  Just kidding, kind of again!

Jack and Chris have a trail course set up and invite everyone to come over this weekend and run the courses on Sunday (8-30) if not raining!

See everyone at the State Fair in three weeks if not before!

A few things. First off if any one has a Facebook we now have a group that you or any friends can join.

Also, we need a logo! I’ll make a forum thread for posting ideas ect. so get in there and start brainstorming!

If you didn’t get in email with a login email me at webmaster@ogdhc.com and I’ll set that up for you.

~Kelsey

Hi all:

Our second club meeting was a big success. 

Attendees:  Brenda, Randy from 4C Ranch, Darla and Jim from McAlester, Jerrad and Kelsy, Marsha and Mark from Chinkapin Ranch and Jack and Chris Hicks from the EZ-L Ranch.

Ken’s Pizza in Prague was our host and we made a pizza party out of it, and celebrated Marsha’s birthday for dessert.

Chris Hick’s opened the meeting with discussion on our venue place for our MidWest Gyspy show.  It was discussed that the Celtic Festival in Stillwater might not be the best place to go as the stalls are open and could be dangerous as well.  Darla suggested that there are several places with better arenas and barns that we could look at.  Ardmore was discussed in trying to bring the Texas Gypsies up to us to attend our show.  There are several places that we are going to call and get information on.  Darla and Chris will research the venues.

Much talk was centered around when to have our show and how it will conflict with foaling season.  Since the McKinney show that is currently in June is trying to move into a March or May time frame, it would leave us with Feb or March time frames to get our show ready.  This gives us a window of only six months to plan our show.  Everyone agreed that the earlier the better.  We also have to keep in mind that the Texas LiveStock show is in the end of January/first of Feb time frame.  Flooding the playing field with another show may limit the number of attendees.

Darla now has the 4C ranch kids training with her.  They all seem excited and things appear to be going well.  Congratulations for the kids.

Congratulations to Darla for her first ride on Max.  It appears to have been a successful union of horse and rider!

Kelsey would like to request that we try and create a logo for our club that she can put up on our website.  We all need to come up with something and submit it.

Discussion was open on how to co-ordinate our displays for shows that we travel to as a group.  Pelco, my employer, makes street signs and poles.  We could ask them to design a pole for us with all of the farms listed on it and pointing the way to the Gypsies at the show.  This would be especially useful at places like the OK State Fair or the Tulsa State Fair.  It was agreed that having a lot of people around looking at our horses is free advertising and exactly what we need.

Randy, in his awesome creativity is creating gates in his machine shop.  We hope that he will agree to put on the website for sale so that when people visit it, they can have the chance to look at them.  They are awesome!

Discussion on our club name was voted on and we will keep it as the OK Gypsy and Drum Horse Club, with the website as www.ogdhc.com.  Kelsey is heading up the website and will update us in emails as we progress.  If everyone could get her some pictures to upload, that would be great.

Marsha handed out some EQUINE journals with our pictures in them.  Shrek made the Drum Horse advertisement in the article for the upcoming Indiana Show in September.  The other article, I missed, my apologies. 

Show schedules pending are OKC-Sept, Indiana Feathered Classic in Sept, Tulsa State Fair in Oct, Women in Horses in November.  Two distanced shows are in Perry, GA, and the big show in Kentucky.  Some of us plan to attend.

We encourage everyone to attend our meeting and give us feedback.  Everyone will be heard.  The next meeting will be at someone’s house and the first one to volunteer, gets the bid!  

Thanks everyone for attending and for those who did not, we hope to see you at the next meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

Chris Hicks

The EZ-L Ranch