FAIRFIELD COUNTY FAIR

Couple continues draft horse tradition

Spencer Remoquillo
Reporter

LANCASTER — Cathy Ballenger has many memories of showing her draft horses at Fairfield County fairs over the years.

Cathy Ballenger leads her 10-year-old Belgian mare Jewel out of the outdoor arena at a trot Tuesday at the Fairfield County Fair in Lancaster.

The fair is where she has shown off her beloved giant animals for 27 years. It's where she has seen the eyes of visitors to the draft horse barn light up after seeing the massive horses for the first time. And it's where her husband, Mark Ballenger, proposed to her more than a decade ago.

One evening, when the couple went for a nightly ride in the fair's outdoor arena, she said: "(Mark) rode up next to me and he proposed to me at the fair, on horseback, riding our draft horses."

"If he had dropped (the ring) in the sawdust, we wouldn't have been able to get off and find it. You need a ladder to get off," she said.

Now that the Ballengers have been married 11 years, they continue the same tradition of showing and housing their draft horses at the fair every year.

This year, they brought three horses, including a 17-year-old shire gelding named Comet, who is a retired mounted patrol horse for the Franklin County Sheriff's Office. Comet lost an eye in an accident and was retired after many showings at Ohio State University football games and other area events.

"Now he's allowed just to be a horse," she said.

Comet is at the fair this week only to be on display in the barn. The couple brought only one draft horse, named Jewel, for competition. Jewel is a blonde 10-year-old Belgian mare. Cathy Ballenger won first place and grand champion mare on Tuesday afternoon as Jewel was the only draft horse to show in the aged mare category.

"There are hardly any Belgians here any more," she said. "This year, we've been the only ones stalling all week."

Among her many memories of the fair, she recalls what draft horse competitions used to be like, compared with the now-dwindling numbers.

"I remember when we had 60 or 70 horses here before, and it's just kind of gone away," she said. "It's sad."

A lot of the draft horse competitors have either died with their children uninterested in continuing the tradition or have found that keeping the horses is just too expensive.

"They eat a lot," she said: Draft horses eat between 50 and 55 pounds of hay and grain each day and can drink 15 gallons of water.

"They're expensive. We farm, so we grow our own grain and hay," she siad.

The Ballengers have four more horses, along with 30 head of Boer goat, at their farm called Idle Hooves Family Farm on Clearport Road.

"They're like potato chips; you can't have just a couple," she said about animals, specifically draft horses.

Before the open class draft horse show, there were many visitors who came in to see the Ballengers' draft horses.

A group of teenagers from Columbus ventured in with looks of awe on their faces.

"This is the first horse I've seen in person," one said, followed by another saying it wasn't the first horse they had seen but it was definitely the largest.

One of the other teenagers confused Jewel for one of the famous Budweiser Clydesdales. Jewel is actually only a couple of inches shorter than the Clydesdales, Cathy Ballenger said, and Jewel is available for close-up encounters, unlike the famous ones in the barn next door.

"We've had so many people coming in to thank us for bringing them," she said. "(Fairgoers) really appreciate us staying here all week. It's been great."

sroush@lancastereaglegazette.com

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Twitter: @SpencerRoushLEG