Horse Judging, Hippology and Horse Bowl Duties

Every January I assist with the 4-H Western Roundup in Denver, Colorado  This year I helped with both the horse bowl and horse judging contests.


About three years ago the events moved from a local hotel with multiple conference rooms to the Colorado State University (CSU) Spur campus.  The spur is a free, public, educational campus that focuses on water, food and health.  The campus features three buildings--the Hydro, Vida and Terra.


This is a view from the Hydro building just as the show was starting to come down.


This lady is a 4-H volunteer and runs many of the horse related contests.  One this day we were working the horse bowl contest.  Horse bowl is similar of knowledge bowl and features horse anatomy, physiology, medical, veterinary care, general care, etc. questions.


In addition, the hippology (study of the horse) competition was taking place in one of the new National Western Stock Show buildings.  I was thrilled to see this one sponsored by CoBank.  CoBank is the funding bank for my former employer, Farm Credit, an agricultural lender.


Not only did they build these amazing structures, they added art.  The Legacy Building has a permanent collection of Western art.


I finally found the hippology contest in the Stockyards Event Center.  I helped grade the written test portion of the contest for a few hours.


The brand new auction pen.


Since the Stock Show didn't open to the public until the following day, they were loading up the Saloon.


The Denver Coliseum is where the horses are shown for the horse judging.  Again, my former employer has become a sponsor the for first time.  It's about time!


Despite the winter weather conditions, many trainers brought in their very nice horses.  First were the performance classes.


Then the halter horses are shown.


The contest always ends with a Clydesdale class.  I've gotten to know these big horses over the years.


To show their appreciation of my service to the Western Roundup, the superintendent always makes sure I get a Stock Show pen.  I have a collection that spans 20+ years.  With this pin I can enter the Stock Show for free whenever I want.

It's one of those volunteer jobs that I'll probably never get out of, but so far I still enjoy it!


Comments

Yogi♪♪♪ said…
The world goes round because of volunteers like you!!
February 19, 2026 at 2:47 PM
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