BY CHRISTINE HAMILTON, FIELD EDITOR
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| At the 2007 World Show, Barn 1 will have been replaced as part of the State Fair Park renovation project. |
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“The stalls were wood,” said AQHA Pro Horseman Cynthia Cantleberry of Paso Robles, California. “They were kind of a woven thing, they weren’t just slats; I don’t know how to explain it. And the horses could see through.”
She was describing how the stalls in Barn 1 looked when she first started coming to the Oklahoma State Fair Park for the AQHA World Championship Show 30 years ago.
“It was the coldest of all colds,” she said with a laugh, though it made for a warm memory. “And when it snowed outside or was freezing, then when the sun would come out and melt, the icicles from this tin roof would come down,” she explained, pointing upward toward Barn 1’s ceiling. “And you’d have to wear a hat cover inside the barn. It was like rain.”
By World Show 2007, Barns 1 and 2 will be gone; they are scheduled for demolition this year, to be replaced by a “superbarn” as part of the State Fair Park’s improvement plan.
Through the years, Cynthia and her late husband, Red, were stalled in every barn at the State Fair Park at some point.
“The best barn to be in, well, the warmest, was Barn 3, but it was the dirtiest,” she said. “They could never keep the dust down; you could hardly breathe in there. But those were the best stalls, and that was the warmest building.
“In Barn 2, those were all portable stalls,” she continued. “All the vents at both ends were open, so if you were stalled out there, it was cold, too. And the vents along the metal walls, some were broken and the wind could come in and we had to put plastic up (to cover them.”
In those early years, Barns 6 and above hadn’t been built.
“I think (where Barn 6 is) was the maintenance yard in the beginning,” Cynthia said. “So if you couldn’t ride in Barn 1 or in Barn 3, you went out on the grass whatever the weather.
“When they put Barn 6 up, they put portable stalls in, but still some of the sides weren’t covered. So you were in out of the snow and the rain, but it was cold.”
Cynthia said she has appreciated every change to the State Fair Park; one in particular gives her a chuckle.
“I don’t know why (they did it), but they switched the bathrooms in Barn 1 one year,” she said, pointing at Barn 1’s bathrooms in the corner next to K.C. Montgomery’s photography booth. “See how they have the men on the left and the women on the right? It used to be the women were on the left and the men on the right, and the first year they did that there were a lot of mistakes made, and I was one of them. It was a riot!”
In more recent years, Cynthia has most often been housed in the front stalls in Barn 1, not far from the entrance to the Norick Arena in the Coliseum. And her green curtained stalls have become a fixture there for most exhibitors.
“Nobody likes to be right here because of the traffic, but it doesn’t bother me at all,” she said with a smile. “And I liked it for my husband because it was easy for him to work and see everybody.”
What is she going to miss about old Barns 1 and 2 when they’re gone next year?
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m going to have to wait and see.”
