By C. E. Hanifin
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Colt Prather sings at the Country Stampede Thursday at the Kentucky Speedway in Sparta.

Seven-year-old Autumn Holden's first trip to the Meijer Country Stampede was a wild ride.

The Cincinnati girl and her mom, Susan Holden, were among the 21,000 people Thursday who attended the first night of the four-day music festival.

The event, which returned to the Kentucky Speedway in Sparta for its second year,. features 20 performers throughout its run. The bill includes headliners Reba McEntire and Martina McBride and up-and-coming musicians such as Neal McCoy and Shevy Smith.

One of the Holdens' first stops was at the mechanical bulls. After giving the fur-covered metal beast a hug, Autumn resisted the machine's gentle bucking for a minute and a half before deciding to dismount.

"It was a little bit scary," she said.

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But not that scary. "Could I go on again?" the little girl asked, tugging her mom's arm.

Autumn was among the many festivalgoers who nabbed the night's hottest item, a brand-new cowboy hat. Hers was powder pink.

At The Rhinestone Cowgirl and other vendors, cowboy hats - in styles ranging from flashy hot-pink zebra print and silver sequins to classic black suede and natural straw - sold briskly.

Throughout the early evening, people milled around the stands serving beer, burgers, brats and other standard festival fare. Thrill-seekers lined up at Air Glory for the chance to be hoisted high into the air by a crane and swung back and forth on a metal cable.

Onstage, Colt Prather's laidback performance matched the mellow mood of those in his audience, who lounged in lawn chairs and sprawled on the grass.

At dusk, many in the crowd rose to their feet for the national anthem, and stayed there when Joe Diffie kicked into the rowdy start of his set. His damn-its-good-to-be-a-redneck numbers and howdy-folks banter scored repeated cheers from the audience.

Diffie and the last act on the bill, Mark Chesnutt, drew Jim Breetz of Hebron, Ky., to the festival's kickoff. Country Stampede is the biggest and best local gathering of the year for country-music fans, he said.

"It's just a good crowd," said Breetz, 42.

The opportunity to hang out with other folks who love country music also lured Lindsey Hagedorn, 17, and three of her friends. The teenagers, all from Warsaw, Ky., have tickets for the festival's whole run.

Hagedorn and her buddies are eager to see rising star Terri Clark and the headlining acts, she said, and they plan to do a lot of crowd-scoping, too.

"I like to just sit and watch people walking around and see if I know anybody," she said.