The Northwest Washington Fair in Lynden is under way again this week and instead of being part of the fun and hub-bub, our Haflinger horses are staying home, out on pasture. It’s been over a decade since they were cleaned up, curried, braided and trailered into town for a week to
help make dreams come true for thousands of fairgoers.

I feel a bit wistful as I wake up early on this foggy mid-August morning, remembering the twenty years of 5:30 AM dawns where I would gather up our sleepy children and their friends and head into the fairgrounds to clean the Haflingers’ stalls, walk the horses for exercise and prepare for a busy day of people strolling by and admiring them. 

We stopped “doing” the fair as a Haflinger farm. Now that I’m 70 years old, rather than 40, 50, or 60, I’m okay about that. It was great while it lasted but this aging human and my equines relish our retirement, especially since the fair expanded to a 10 day rather than just a 6 day commitment. I so admire the draft horse families that have kept their six horse hitches active with their Belgians, Percherons and Clydesdales – some families are now in their fourth generation at the fair with teamsters, still driving the hitches, well into their eighties.

Our BriarCroft Haflingers display was a consistent presence at this regional fair for two decades, promoting the Haflinger breed in well-decorated stalls. Part of our commitment was to provide a 24-hr-a-day human presence with the horses. We had petitioned the Fair Board for 5 years in the late 1980s to allow us a spot at the fair, and they finally said “okay, here’s the space, build it yourself”, so we did.

We didn’t ask for classes, competition, or ribbons. We were there because fairgoers enjoyed seeing and touching our Haflingers and we enjoyed talking to all the people.

Once our children and their friends had careers and children of their own, they were no longer available to help “man” the horse stalls. I still miss spending such concentrated time with all the young nieces, nephews, neighbors, church and school friends who hung out with us over the years. I hope they still have fond memories of their time helping us at the fair.

Every year from 1992 onward, we evaluated whether we had the energy and resources to do it  again. Initially, Dan and I juggled our small children as well as horses at the fair and at home, taking a week of vacation from our jobs. Then, with the help of two other Haflinger breeding farms, and several young women who did a crowd-pleasing Haflinger “trick” riding demo in front of the grandstand, we rotated duties. The older kids watched the younger kids, the in-between kids did most of the horse stall cleaning duty, and the adults could sit and shoot the breeze.

This created good will for the fair visitors who depended on us every year to be there with horses that they and their children could actually pet (and sit on) without worry, who enjoyed our braiding demonstrations, and our Haflinger trivia contests and prizes.

We continued to do this for so long because our horses were friendly and happy to give fair-goers a chance to safely get up close. These Haflingers became what dreams are made of.

Countless times a day a bright eyed child approached our stalls, climbed up on the step stools and reached up to pet a Haflinger nose or neck and look deep into those big brown eyes. They will not forget the moment when a horse they had never met before loved them back. Haflingers are magic with children and we saw that over and over again.

So on this foggy August morning years later, instead of heading to the fairgrounds to clean stalls and braid manes, I’m turning out our retired, dusty, unbathed Haflingers into the field as usual. They barely recall all the excitement they are missing.

Even if our horses don’t remember much about those fair weeks so long ago, I know some fair-goers still miss the friendly golden horses with the big brown eyes who tried, even if for a day, to make their dreams come true.