(Radio Iowa) – Every stall in the Horse Barn at this year’s Iowa State Fair has been occupied — and Clydesdale and Percheron draft horses have arrived as their National Shows get underway today (Thursday). Noah Levy is the Horse Barn Superintendent, which means he’s in charge of the two-acre, 12-aisle barn. “It’s about as big as we can get,” Levy says. “It’s about as many horses as we can put in the barn.” Levy started volunteering in the barn in 2017 to help out a friend — and this is his third year as superintendent. “You know, you want friends with boats, you may not want to own your own boat. I do this so I don’t have to own horses,” Levy says. “For me, it’s about the people and the horses are a bonus.” The Horse Barn is a MOSTLY tranquil place.

“The noise you’re going to hear is when one of them is hungry and has decided, even though it’s not technically meal time for them, they want it now and they’ll start banging on the stalls,” Levy said, “and especially with our drafts and you’ve got 2000 pound horses, their banging on the stalls sounds like thunder in this barn.” After the July deadline for entries in this year’s horse shows, there was a wait list. “When they enter for these classes, it’s difficult for us to know how many stalls they’re going to need versus what we had because we run a bunch of different breed shows and they overlap in the barn,” Levy says. “It’s not as simple as, ‘Oh, we’ve got 500 stalls in this barn. Once you sell out 500, you close it.” Levy says the wait list was eliminated, though, by laying out the puzzle pieces differently.

Horse Barn on the Iowa State Fairgounds

“A lot of credit for that goes to the team working on it and also our exhibitors themselves,” Levy says. “We called many of them and asked them: ‘What is the minimum number of stalls you need in order to show at the Iowa State Fair?’ And a lot of our long time exhibitors really came to the plate for us, gave back stalls, so that we could get exhibitors off the wait list so that everybody could get in and we cleared that wait list just a few days, I would say, less than a week before the Fair started.” Levy says all the horse shows are getting more popular based on the number of exhibitors — and the number spectators. There have been standing-room-only crowds for some of this year’s shows.

“If you’re popping in, especially to one of our evening shows with a six-horse hitch running in the ring, you’re generally hooked,” Levy said, “and your generally coming back and you’re bringing more friends with you.” The show ring in the Jacobsen Building on the Fairgrounds opened in 2010. Two years ago, state fair officials ended ticket sales for the Horse Shows and entry is now free. As soon as this year’s Fair is over, phase two of Horse Barn renovations will start. “New stalls on new flooring, new ventilation — that’s a big draw for some exhibitors,” Levy says. “These old barns are wonderful and historic and they’re really cool to walk through, but given their age they’re maybe not as nice to show in anymore, but the Fair has really stepped up and we’re looking at a very expensive renovation of this barn that should be completed before the Fair next year.”

Phase one of the project focused the outside of the building was completed before this year’s Fair. The Horse Barn was built in 1907, with additions in 1909, 1912 and 1929.