Fiesta Horse Counting Winner!

Starting at Cabrillo Boulevard at high noon on Saturday, the annual El Desfile Histórico made its way through downtown Santa Barbara. Floats, carriages, dancers, magnificent costumes, and of course horses, marched in the humid heat with hundreds of cheering them on.

This was the 93rd anniversary of the Fiesta Historical Parade and it’s one of the nation’s biggest equestrian parades. Sticking with tradition, the edhat staff stood amongst the crowd to count how many horses really were marching along. Per our usual requirements, donkeys and mules were not counted. However, something different was brought to Ed’s attention this year. Mini horses. Do these count as horses or not? We thought long and hard about this new equestrian category, and after some internal calculating, Ed decided yes. Mini horses count as horses. Perhaps it’s because “horse” is in the title of their name, but either way, they count!

After this new rule being established, that made the grand total of horses in this year’s parade as 491. And how did edhat readers do? Pretty well actually! There were a lot of submissions within 50-75 horses. But, the closest was one reader who guessed 478, just 13 off the total number. Congratulations to Lucky777! That lucky username really comes in handy. You have won an edhat bag, two Old Spanish Days Fiesta shirts, and a Fiesta tote bag.

Check out the below chart of horse counting through the years.