The Hillsboro Horse Show and Festival will be held Saturday, at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds, 10349 Business 21, in Hillsboro.
Gates open at 11 a.m. for the event, which runs through 7 p.m. General admission is $3. Children 6 and younger, active military with IDs and those 65 and older get in free.
The Hillsboro Community Civic Club and the Greater Hillsboro Chamber of Commerce sponsor the event.
“We first did the festival in 2019 and, of course, the horse show has gone on for many, many years,” said Kelly Fortel, a festival organizer.
The horse show dates back to 1946.
Fortel said the festival will offer a number of family-oriented seasonal activities.
“We have a Pumpkin Patch kind of in the middle of the festival grounds,” Fortel said. “People can purchase their pumpkins and mums and gourds. At the end of the Pumpkin Patch will be activities for kids, like pumpkin painting.”
The festival also features live music, chicken dinner sales, a silent auction, pony rides, food and merchandise vendors and other activities, she said.
“At 1 p.m., there’s a scarecrow costume contest for kids,” Fortel said. “There are two groups, one for ages 1 to 4 and the other for ages 5 to 10.
“There are raffle drawings. Back in the early days of the horse show, they’d raffle a pony. Now, they’ll raffle bikes. Most of the vendors are crafters.”
The musical acts include Steve Hardesty, 11 a.m.- 2 p.m.; the Hillsboro Intermediate Treble Singers, 2-2:30 p.m.,: Hillsboro Rockin’ Hawks, 2:30-3 p.m.; Russ Wellington-Cody Goggin, 3-6 p.m.
“We normally get between 100 and 120 horses for this type of event,” organizer Doug Goforth said. “It’s an assortment of English, Western and speed events.
For more information about the horse show and the festival, visit www.jeffersoncountyfair.net.