…it’s the 180th Anniversary of the Vankleek Hill Fair [link] this summer so, to celebrate, the Vankleek Hill Agricultural Society brought the RCMP Musical Ride [link] to town.

By the time I arrived, the RCMP People had already taken the horses off the trailers and were in the process of putting the tack on them. There were only three or five people watching, and there were no barricades, so I just walked right into the paddock behind the Grandstand where they were warming up the horses and started taking photos.

I managed to get some really close-up and cool photos of the Horses and Riders. But then the wrangler (?) caught me in a place I wasn’t supposed to be and she politely told me to piss off. I agreed to, but I had taken enough shots by then and the pre-show was starting anyway…

The local talent in the pre-show consisted of the Prescott County 4-H Square Dancers [link], Quigley Highlanders Pipe Band [link], the MacCullough Dancers [link], and the Pleasant Corners Public School Choir sang O’Canada.

…the Musical Ride is actually older than the RCMP. It started back in 1873 / 1876, when bored members of the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) decided to show off their horse riding skills to the locals. It wasn’t until 1920, when the now Royal NWMP merged with the eastern-based ‘Dominion Police’, and became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), that the RCMP got involved.

So the Musical Ride itself is celebrating its 151st anniversary, while the RCMP is 104-years old… for what it’s worth, Canada turned 157-years old a couple of weeks ago. So there, now you know more stuff.

…six of the photos below were published on The Review’s website [link]. A bunch of them were also published in their Print Edition — you can subscribe here: [link].

The video I left embedded below is is the full RCMP Ride at the ‘100th Anniversary Royal Horse Show’ in Toronto… their musical choices were different from Vankleek Hill’s. They went with Classical music, we went with Stompin’ Tom, and Miley Cyrus.

…so now, if you’re down with it, you just click on a photo to get the carousel going.