Midwest Horse Fair — Local services in Madison

We did a demo and attended the Sat.evening performance! We've been attending the fair for about 20 years, and have always enjoyed it! Great place for any equine enthusiast! I was disappointed in the Sat. night show needed more marching band and patriotic music, like I'm a Yankee doodle Dandy. Get the crowd involved!!!! I think everyone expect a big tribute to the Military it wasn't there! They didn't even bring the Reckless horse out? I'd like to hear some country western singers, even maybe a small competition for up and coming singers with audience voting?

The band was great!!! The singers were great! The band could of played some better songs!!!!!

The Military men were great ! The hoop dance was great but have seen it many times!

Too many Friesians and Spanish Horses

One of the slow theater type performances was enough for me! Me and my shadow and the phantom of the Opera was too much of the same thing!

The reining was great who doesn't like a father and daughter team and two quarter horses that could move like cats!!!

Dan James short little demo was fun to watch with the fire!

We didn't get to see as much of the fair as we would like too,because we did the fashion show, a bitting demo, and two International Quarter Pony demos.

I will say I completely enjoyed Dale Myler short little demo, and think it would be a great learning experience for any horse person!!!

Sorry don't remember the name of the performer with the horse pulling the car but that was fun, short and interesting!!!

Always looking forward to next year at the Midwest Horse...

The Arc of Dodge County took a group of disabled members to the rodeo this year. They absolutely loved the rodeo. The ushers were very helpful with our seating but a major problem is that the handicapped bus was not allowed to go to the West entrance where the elevators and the handicapped seats were. The bus had to leave us off at the East side and we had to walk around the building to the West side. Some were wheelchairs and were pushed but some had walkers and this walk was very stressful for them and for the chaperones. I did contact a person during the rodeo and they did allow the handicapped bus to come to the west side to pick us up after the rodeo. I called the Midwestern horse show office and they told us that they "can't" allow any vehicle to go to the West side even though it is handicapped. I suggested putting something on their website telling people and groups that they will have to walk from the East side of the Alliant Center to the West side and it is not easy. Great rodeo but not for physically handicapped people. Bernie Hafenstein, The Arc of...

The quality of the vendors has gone considerably. Vendors that have nothing to do with horses are being allowed to sell items (skincare and lawn ornaments.) There are no vendors with show clothes for horse shows and those that did have anything did not have good variety or quality. There were maybe a handful of high quality leather goods vendors, the rest were selling Tough 1 brand and China made leather (cracks the instant you bend it.) The board is definitely going with quantity over quality for vendors. Catering to the rodeo spectator crowd and not the local or semi-local people who want high quality items at decent prices. The high quality vendors that were there had good items at fair prices. Horses - the quality of the horses that were there was mediocre at best. There were a few good looking horses (mostly owned by the clinicians) but most of the breed horses looked poorly taken care of and a horribel representation of the breed. 80% of the stalls were empty. I remember a time when all the barns used to be...