You should see the eventing venues in Colorado and Wyoming and in Kansas City. They are all on public property and funded, built and maintained by volunteers. It is possible.
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Do all those states have a really good Equine Limited Liability laws?
I would guess the extent of those laws are what makes it doable or not doable. There is a lot of liability associated with holding an event.
We are lucky to have two public park/facilities in our province, that run one official HT per year and other schooling shows and non-eventing days. They are entirely volunteer-run. The riding rings are open to the public, as well as trails and the cross-country fields. The footing is at the mercy of the general horse public using their common sense.
For one facility, due to liability, all XC jumps except logs on the ground are chained-off and only opened up a couple times a year for schooling and the horse trials. It is a very labour intensive job to unchain and re-chain all the jumps. It also means that out-of-towners rarely get a chance to school, as the schooling days fall on weekdays (3 out of 4 this year).
At the other facility, many portable jumps are moved off the fields - also for liability I think, but it makes mowing easier and doesn’t leave dead grass behind. This is normal for some privately-owned facilities as well.
I think the stalls are awesome and bigger and in great condition than many other places. Was it not sold to another family member? I thought it was.
I find it very sad that the horse community has helped build this place up to have all events and shows get sc/re/wed. Granted, I’m sure those events don’t pull in the money they need. It still sux though because there are so many shows and events that are held there now that are scrambling to find a place to continue. Of course the owners are allowed to do what they want but it still sux. Such a gorgeous place. We will be there at the end of sept. My clients love it there.
Many states venues can be self insured. So, not sure that is a real issue. I know one of our state park/show grounds was self insured.
That makes it even more of an issue.
Because then the municipality has to come up with the money if something happens.
Having a good/complete state limited liability law lowers the chance of them getting sued.
His daughter Nathalie also rode competitively at the 4* level (what is now 5*) and was married to Michael Pollard, who was at one point the CEO of the carpet company but now appears to be returning to horses.
There was an interesting Equestrian Voices episode with Michael where he discusses his career journey!
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If they don’t I know a good contact to get insurance in place for mid to large sized equine events/spaces.
So do I, but that was not the point. They are talking about public owned facilities with equine events.
I was pointing out that in the places that have these state/county/town owned facilities they also likely have good equine limited liability laws in place.
Eh. From my experience (which, full transparency, is limited to one part of the country) the equine liability is usually subpar at best at these types of venues.
I’m not intimately familiar with this area so if they’re great - cool. I threw out my comment because that’s just not been my experience in reviewing these laws, contracts and, ultimately, insurance policies for equine-agribusiness’.
