PANAMA CITY BEACH – It was a horse fan’s crowd at the 11th annual Gulf Coast Horse Show & Music Festival Wednesday at Frank
Brown Park. Audience members didn’t seem to mind the sparse numbers as they cheered and clapped for riders performing demonstrations on horses such as Tennessee walkers and Missouri fox trotters. As waiters carried cold drinks to people in sunglasses sitting at white tables and bleachers on the sunny afternoon, riders wearing double breasted frock coats and hats rode elegantly on mounts along a gravel-dirt path enclosed by a white fence. Blue ribbons were awarded to winners of different competitions. Ginger Simpson of Alabama won the western light shod specialty. Panama City’s Sister Milligan won the ride for amateur stallions 15.2 hands and under, specialty. The charity event, which has raised more than $675,000 since it began, supports the Anchorage Children’s Home in Panama City. Bill Burgess of Alabama was watching his third horse show in Panama City Beach Wednesday. Burgess, a gray-bearded man who gets surly if you ask his age, said the Gulf Coast Horse Show has become one of the best around. “It’s nearly as good as the one in Shelbyville,” Burgess said. “And that’s the best of the best.”
Burgess, using a keen and trained eye, pointed out the differences in mounts and riding styles as he discussed the scoring.