272 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



SADDLE AND SHOW HORSE CHRONICLE, LEXINGTON, KENTUCK\. 



BY HERBERT J. KRUSI, EDITOR. 



While the county fairs have been in full blast for several weeks in 

 Kentucky and Missouri and the eastern shows have been staged on the 

 Virginia circuit the first of the horse shows on the state fair circuit 

 found its opening session at Des Moines in connection with the Iowa 

 state fair. Being the first of the series, it naturally commands an un- 

 usual importance and also enjoys a patronage that is scarcely true in like 

 degree of any of those which follow. But in addition to the favorable 

 position it occupies on the time schedule, the Iowa institution has other 

 advantages which give it a commanding postion. The fair is admirably 

 supported by the state board and is able to indulge in educational ad- 

 vantages for the people with a most lavish prodigality. Iowa is a rich 

 and prosperous state and her state fair is regarded as an institution be- 

 longing to all of her people so that it is not only solidly grounded from a 

 financial standpoint, but enjoys, as well, the substantial and highly im- 

 portant united sentimental support of her public. 



Also it is most superbly officered. President C. E. Camerrn., oi Alta 

 is an all round adept in conceiving and carrying out big projects and 

 his firm hand in directing the many phases of the mammoth affair is 

 perceptible in every direction. Ably and serenely occupying the chief 

 executive position. Secretary Corey is the most unruffled official possible 

 to conceive. Nothing worries or disturbs his composure and the thou- 

 sand sided machine he directs works as smoothly and with as little fric- 

 tion as the most perfectly balanced and delicately adjusted piece of 

 mechanism. He is never in a hurry and with countless scores of de- 

 mands upon him, he has time, patience and a prompt and low voiced 

 answer for every one. Perfect mastery of detail and most palpable evi- 

 dences of far reaching executive and administrative abilities make them- 

 selves felt in every part of the Iowa state fair. In the horse department 

 this fair enjoys what is of course an advantage not duplicated at any 

 other in the country for nowhere else is it possible to have as superin- 

 tendent of horses such a man as Dean C. F. Curtiss, of Ames. He is a 

 veritable gaint in intellectual stature and of tremendous creative power 

 in reducing multifarious and magnificent projects to ah orderliness and 

 system bordering closely on perfection. He has surrounded his depart- 

 ment, too, with a corps of able assistants and C. N. Arnett, of Ames 

 is one of the best qualified men in personal charge of a show ring to 

 be found anywhere in the country. 



Of. first importance is the amount of money "hung up" for the horse- 

 men to compete for. Of course as draft horses are the great glory of 

 Iowa's live stock interest and wealth it is natural that the heavy horses 

 get a very favorable consideration, but the light horses fare well also 

 and the, horse show end of it has become the real "pet" of the Iowa man- 

 agement. The total sum set apart for the show horses is $12,000 and 

 fo""o7ang the custom which has been growing in favor since it was in- 

 troduced by The Chronicle in the saddle horse colt stake, the multiple 



