The Northern Michigan Paint Horse Club held its annual Paint O’Rama July 4-5, 2015 in East Lansing, Michigan. A full slate of APHA classes were offered including Sweepstakes classes in Showmanship, Trail, Hunter Under Saddle and Western Pleasure. However, the highlighted event this year was the Team Competition.  Every exhibitor is invited to join in on the fun.  It costs $5/exhibitor and the $5 is added to their show tab.  There are four members per team, one amateur, one youth, one novice (either youth or amateur) and one open competitor. Exhibitors are not required to find their own team, the staff matches them up.

“We try very hard to make the teams equal in number of classes entered and skill level,” says NMPHC Board Member Wendy Noder. “We also try to match people up who don’t yet know each very well!  This ‘forces’ team members to look their teammates up, introduce themselves, and in many cases, form permanent new relationships.”

The team’s points are kept on a poster board graph and displayed throughout the show. Points for each team member in each category that they show in.  Since some team members are halter exhibitors only, they contribute points only in that category, but many can earn up to 28 points.

The team members enter extra classes to help their team, which is a win for the show management, and they cheer their teammates on, many who they didn’t even know before they came to our POR.  Team standings are announced at the end of the first day, and several times throughout the last day.  The points are made public after each class, and team members are encouraged to check for mistakes.

At the end of the show, the each member of a winning team is awarded first prize, for this POR it was a monogrammed towel, a large plastic glass with vinyl lettering, and a $25 gift card donated by Smart Pak, 2nd place and 3rd place teams also received prizes.

“We had 10 teams, so 40 exhibitors participated.  We always give them a “money back” guarantee: if they can tell us they honestly did not have any fun being on a team and participating in the competition they won’t have to pay the $5 fee,” says Noder. “We have never had one person ask for a refund, and this is our fourth year of having the team competition.”

Judges for this year’s event were Susan Robinson, Kevin Ester, Kevin Longacre and Nikki Longacre.