“It was an honour and a privilege,” said Westlock County resident Beth Thola, who recently paraded her team of Norwegian Fjord horses at the Calgary Stampede.
In the heart of downtown Calgary July 5, Thola and her team were part of the “Greatest Outdoor Show On Earth,” the 107th annual Calgary Stampede parade, showcasing the breed in the Horse Haven Booth and in riding demonstrations as well.
“I was asked to represent the Canadian Fjord Horse Association in the Calgary Stampede parade,” said Thola.
She took with her Missie and Vegas, aged 10 and seven respectively, a mother-daughter team that she raised and trained, who pulled a wagon custom-built by her husband, Ken Thola.
“As a small child, we had gone to the Calgary Stampede, and I remember seeing the Calgary Tower, that was always an iconic landmark for me. To be driving my team underneath that tower was just surreal,” said Thola.
With so many people, and so much excitement and noise, the Fjords were just fine, she said.
On the day Thola took her team to the parade, 127,777 people attended the stampede, a new attendance record which was broken again July 9, with over 129,000 in the crowd.
Thola described the parade as an “adrenaline rush, with people … on either side of you, and the pedways across the road were (also) full of people.”
The breed is “forgiving, kind, and level-headed,” she said. “That shows when you can take a homegrown team and put them in downtown Calgary … as a train whizzes by,” said Thola, describing that the most unique part was stopping for the C-Train in the middle of the parade.
“I call them the yellow lab of the horse world.”
Fjords are small horses and range in size from 13.2 to 14.2 hands, and weigh in at about 900 to 1200 pounds, but Thola said they’re very strong,despite their relative size to other horses.
Part of their presence in the booth and the demonstrations was to showcase the range of the Fjord breed, which is utilized for everything from riding to driving and draft work. They’re known as very trainable, versatile, and sure-footed animals.
And it seems Norwegian Fjords inspire loyalty in their owners as well.
“I’ve been involved with the Fjord breed for 40 years,” said Thola. “I dabbled in all sorts of horses over the years, and went back to my Fjords.”
