Our friends Lyudmila Klacz, her husband Woytek and son Joseph and Janko and me met at Bonavista Lake community square near Esso station to get free Stampede
breakfast and participate in activities: listening to the country music, dancing, socialising a little bit. Attracted to cheerful music, we started to dance and won the prize: small sets of cosmetic things. Multi-coloured balloons were flying in the air, kids were having fun as usual, everywhere happy faces and smiles…
After that we continued our way to Spruce Meadows grounds to watch the North American Championship in horse riding and
jumps with barriers. It was a very interesting show. It reminded me about my first visit to Spruce Meadows on May 31, 1999. As far as I remember I wrote a poem “A Horse was Born as an Animal of Beauty”. At the end of it I wrote:
“A horse was born as an animal of perfection,
In casual homestead and for entertaining,
Whatever purpose to be, your satisfaction,
Is guaranteed in her closeness and endearing.”
We watched the competition, travelled around the Spruce Meadows grounds, noticing how big they grow, stopped at the Ice Cream Parlour, Memorial Avenue, and all of a sudden… Lo and Behold! Janko met his buddy from the previous job site: Canadian pacific Railways. It was Dale Gale, sitting proudly on the white horseback, demonstrating her most wonderful features: her gait, her tenderness and loyalty to the host. Dale’s wife Helen was nearby, in the same way sitting on the brown horseback. They told us that they were doing this job with horses volunteerly because they live at their farmers’ house and look after horses. Pleasant meeting with pleasant people!
Here are some photos (courtesy of Lyudmila Klacz and her family)
Watch a documentary film about horses:
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