🍀 Trails and Tails 2026 🍀

This weekend, I traveled to Trails and Tails, held in Greensburg, PA. This show is hosted by and benefits a local 4-H club. For those who may not know, I was a 4-H kid, and the organization is near and dear to my heart. I think it teaches valuable life skills like responsibility and sportsmanship, so I like to give back to it when I can.

This year, I judged OF Stone. The show is small but mighty, with several showers bringing fabulous competitive pieces in all divisions. The Performance ring was full all day, and the entries were incredible - I wish I had taken photos of some of them! Alas, I was busy bouncing back and forth between keeping Stone at a nice pace and getting my horses in the ring. I'm proud of myself - I only had one horse miss a class (well, two if we count the one that I straight up forgot to pack). I had just about one horse in every class for OF Breyer and OF Mini, so it's pretty impressive that I managed this while still keeping my judging at a good pace (shout out to the Breyer judge for letting my horses from the previous class sit for a few extra minutes until I had time to run them back to my table).

One thing I really like about this show is the only class specifically for unrealistic horses is a fantasy class. Since fantasy is specifically for horses with wings and horns, that means the decorators are shown in the respective breed classes for their body type. For me, a mini collector who loves rarities, this is fantastic - most of those mini rarities are decorators. At most shows with specific decorator classes, I have to try and fit all of them into one, maybe two classes, and they're all competing against each other. Here, I can spread out the decorators! The class limit was two horses, but buy-ins were allowed, so I bought in for my collectability only entries. I got a lot of my decorators qualified this weekend!

The string did well overall - I had at least one sectional champ or reserve in nearly every section, and came home with two overall reserve champions - one in OF Mini Collectability, and one in OF Breyer Breed. I was not expecting the breed champ, so I'm very happy!

My friend Christine taking a selfie with me and my hobby mascot Gay Prancer

Something about a small show is the ability to connect and chat with other hobbyists. I love large shows, but it can be hard to manage showing and chatting in an environment with so many people and so much going on. Even with showing two full strings and judging, I still had time to chat with the people around me, my fellow judges, and my friends who were at the show. The show was wrapped up by 6, so there was plenty of time for post-show dinner with the group before driving home.

I have one more show left in May (Rainbow Rave Live this weekend), and NAN entry wraps up Sunday, and then I get a nice relaxing two week break before the Big Orange Bash in June. I love showing, but I can't wait to get back to my normal routine. I've got some fun things planned on the blog for May!

The Champions: