Today I went with my wife and our friend Steve to the St. Croix Horse and Carriage Sleigh Festival. We’ve gone to this event now for several years, although this is the first year that they held it at the Washington County Fairgrounds. In years past, it was held as an event at the St. Paul Winter Carnival.

It was quite a cold day. I don’t know what the high was, but I know that it was less than 10 degrees. When we left the farm this morning it was below zero. BRRR!! I think I had on every piece of cold weather gear that I owned.

I tried to take photos of it again this year, but I’m kinda disappointed in how they turned out. I think this was a combination of it being cold, having a new camera, having it be bright and sunny with lots of white snow and lots of dark sleighs, and a bunch of other stuff. At any rate the pictures that I like are already posted here.

One new thing I saw this year was two runaway horses. Anytime you have horse drawn vehicles, there is always a danger of a runaway. In the first case, the sleigh tipped over, the driver spilled out, and the horse immediately spooked and took off. Unfortunately, this is not that unusual when pulling a sleigh of the type they were using — a Portland Cutter. Portland Cutters sit pretty high and don’t turn particularly well, so they are prone to tip. The odd part of this story is that I was the guy who ended up getting the horse stopped. That’s right. Me. The guy with almost no experience around horses compared to all the other people that were at this event. Here’s the story:

As the horse took off, I watched a whole group of people take off after it to try and get it stopped. For whatever reason, I decided that I might be able to help too and started running. I was watching where the horse was headed, which wasn’t far from me, so rather than try to chase the horse, I ran towards where I thought it might end up. As I ran between two trailers, I saw the horse, still pulling the sleigh (which was on its side) running towards me, although it was starting to slow down. I did what I’d been taught to do. I waved my arms and yelled, “Whoa” and much to my surpise, the horse slowed down, and then stopped. I quickly stepped over to it and grabbed it by its reins where they attach to the bit and waited for everyone else who was chasing the horse to catch up and get him unhitched. The best of part of the story is that there were no major injuries to the horse, the driver, or the sleigh — so it had a happy ending. Not bad for amateur, huh?

The second runaway was even scarier. I didn’t see it happen, but once again the horse and the driver were uninjured. Unfortunately, the sleigh was badly bent. Even worse, the horse managed to crash into three cars while it was running and caused pretty significant damage to them. Yikes! No one I talked to had a good idea of what spooked the horse either.

Steve ended up getting an award again this year for “Best Costume – Male” for his impressive Racoon skin hat and coat. The idea here is to where clothing that would have been accurate for the vehicle being driven as well as the time period — and once again, his ensemble fit the bill extremely well. The funny part is that he bought the vintage fur coat on eBay of all places. It’s amazing what you can find there, huh?

–Pete