Hold your horses

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The Simcoe fairgrounds will look a little bit different during this year’s Norfolk County Fair and Horse Show.

The horse show area within the track is getting a facelift leading into the 2019 fair.

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George Araujo, the general manager of NCF, said the project has been in the works since the end of last year’s fair but construction had to be rescheduled.

The wet weather in recent months has pushed the renovations back until now.

The plan is to upgrade from the previous singular pen to a new double pen for the horses. This will make the warm-up area more similar to the actual show area.

“It’s all part of our horse show rejuvenation,” said Araujo. “We can have a proper warm-up area that is exactly like our show area, or we can use them both as a show area as the show grows.”

This will make it so more than one show event can be going on at the grounds at one time.

These upgrades began in November 2018 when they cut down three mature trees to clear the land for the pens. The value of this upgrade is marked at $100,000. Since 2017 more than $300,000 has been invested in improvements to the horse barns, facilities, equipment and the new double paddock construction.

Last year one of the horse barns was completely renovated, which marked the beginning of the rejuvenation process.

There will not be any additional horse shows added for this year’s fair, but there is the possibility for more shows in coming years.

“We’re one of the largest outdoor shows in Canada already so we’re pretty excited,” said Araujo.

The goal is to grow the horse show that takes place during the fair week, and also to attract new shows to the area.

Any future shows that would like to use the newly updated fairgrounds as their facilities are being asked to contact Araujo to schedule a time.

astaylor@postmedia.com