State Fair of Texas - part 1

Another day, another state fair! We visited the State Fair of Virginia on Friday, September 26. We got to Texas in time to visit the State Fair of Texas on Senior Thursday ($7 admission each in addition to the $30/car parking) -- it would have been cheaper if we'd taken the DART (light rail), but it wasn't convenient from where we were staying out near Lake Tawakoni.

I had mapped out that we would park at gate 2, and got off I-30 with that in mind, but a lot of other people also had that plan, and when we got to the entrance, the security folks at the entrance waved us off... I wasn't sure where to go next, but we kept on driving, and saw signs for public State Fair of Texas parking. I didn't want to park in the offsite parking areas, so followed the signs and got in at gate 11. 

That brought us to the Penn Gate Entrance (take a picture so we remember!).

I knew we weren't very near Big Tex, but we saw a big boot!

I had figured out times to see different shows that we wanted to catch, so we decided to start by watching the pig races. The arena was out in the sun, and it was warm, so better to watch them in the morning...

They had music going before the races and we enjoyed watching people.

Before the races, they introduced the pig that they said had been the big winner last year -- he has put on a few pounds since then!

If you've never been to pig races before, there is a lot of build-up to the event. They get victims, ehr, volunteers from the stands to cheer for each of the pigs. Each pig has a special piggy-inspired name. 

They load the little pigs into the starting gates, put their "silks" on (numbers and colors), and somehow the little piggies know that they have to take off when the gate opens and tear around the course. At the end of the course is a silver tray with grain on it, and one Oreo cookie -- according to the announcer, only the first pig gets the Oreo, and the tail, ehr, tale that is told is that they love Oreo cookies.

You can watch a video that Carl took of one of the races that we saw here: https://youtu.be/97XgRAuPw_w

After the pig races, we went over to the Livestock Judging Pavilion to see what was going on...  

A beef steer class was underway...

... the information on the display monitor indicated that this was American Class 7 Heavyweight.

It appeared that the judge had segmented the class into about 5-6 animals for him to consider, and then he kept the best from each lot (maybe there had been 3 lots in all, we got there when he was on the last lot) -- he placed them in his desired order...

... and then he lined them up in his placing. He described for each animal why it was in the place where it was -- for the first one, what had made it above the ones behind it, for the second, what it was lacking that the first one had but why it was above the ones behind it, and so on... 

Since these were market steers, and I think they are going to be sold at the end of the day (well, actually, by the end of the next day, as it appeared that the youth livestock auction was scheduled for Friday at 1pm) -- I'm not sure how much the input of the judge would matter much... for me, when I was showing my horse, I appreciated the judge telling me what things I could improve upon... for these animals, well, I guess the exhibitors could consider the input of what the judge was looking for in the conformation of the animals, or muscle-ing, and select which steer they would work with for next year's show. 

In the picture, you also see some additional animals lined up against the rail -- I think that these are heavier heavyweight market steers, and that they separate them into two classes based on a weigh in at the fairgrounds -- but we didn't stay for the judging of that class.

We went on to the Coliseum where they were having a performance of "Majesty of the Horse - A Jerry Diaz Family Production"... 

It started with a group of young equestriennes in a drill team presenting the Texas flag...

I think that this was Jerry Diaz's wife, Staci, working with her horse to display athleticism and partnership.

There were multiple performances, illustrating partnership between humans and horses that were very beautiful!

More about our State Fair of Texas visit in another post!