Well, there is Lamplight and I think the weather is far worse there (I grew up there) than here. We did have two USDF conventions with ridden symposiums in Denver in November during the last 20 years (one with Conrad Schumacher and one with Kyra Kyrklund). We also hosted the North American Junior/Young Riders Championships a couple of times. In the old days of Dressage in the Rockies, competitors came from all over the west and California. If they make it a great show, people will come back. We also had a thriving dressage community here, until they developed over our horse country. I also think the reduction (elimination of the lower income tier of competitiors) is true across the country as developers take over land and boarding and farm purchases become too pricey.
The CHP did a CDI a few years ago. It was a disaster with 5 entries per class. I think it was connected with Dressage at High Prairie (early June) several weeks after the Dressage Symposium. Again, the show was poorly organized, not well publicized and the judges chosen off putting for the national show (really super tough ones).
There were also some attempts at CDIs in Estes Park and they built a beautiful FEI show barn for it. The footing at Estes and access to Estes is a huge barrier to bringing people from across the country. The only way that worked was to hold it in a year where people were trying to qualify for teams for something.
I don’t think many people travel from the midwest to Colorado to show in dressage. A little from Kansas and Nebraska, maybe? Between Lamplight serving the midwest and Colorado being in a different region than the midwestern states I don’t think midwestern dressage density is a significant factor in CHP’s viability.
Colorado’s front range has a fair bit of dressage, and tends to have milder winters and less humidity compounding summer heat than the midwest or the northeast. Showing tends to be seasonal, of course, but not moreso than in other temperate climates and with no greater frequency of severe weather impacts on shows IME. Dispersion of riders across a wide territory might exacerbate early season and late season road condition issues for people traveling to shows. But beyond that it’s unclear that weather has a greater impact in Colorado than other temperate regions.
It’s also not like CHP was hosting CDIs with any regularity, though. They’ve hosted what, one or two since Bellissimo’s group bought it? The other location for CDIs on the front range is Estes Park, which is even more prone to fickle weather conditions due to its elevation, and it has hosted a number of CDIs over the years, so again it doesn’t seem like weather is the source of the issue.
From my vantage point, as a typical dressage ammie within showing distance of CHP (but with several other venues closer to me), it seems like there was potential for CHP to be a venue with big enough shows and decent enough facilities and a good enough overall showing experience to attract a wide range of riders from both the core and farther reaches of the region. I know several people in more remote parts of the region who travel there every summer to show. Colorado will never be Florida for many reasons, but between a Front Range with plenty of high end equestrian activity and smatterings of dressage across the wider region there does seem to be demand for a solid, central show venue. That said, I don’t know how dressage alone factors into their more general business model – certainly dressage is just a fraction of the activity at the facility, and I don’t know what the landscape of alternative venues looks like in other, potentially more lucrative disciplines (esp. HJ – I’m totally out of that loop these days).
We’re up to our ampits in H/J’s here. I have no idea what’s happening with their show season in 2020, but that’s where the money is for an oufit like CHP. They can run, I dunno, 5 or 6 hunter or jumper rounds in the time it takes to ride one dressage test. CHP doesn’t need or want dressage, though it sure seemed that way with that first year’s symposium. Agree the second year was nothing but sad, sad, sad.
We’ve lost a few instructor/trainers, too. That’s not good.
No, I don’t think we were ever shooting for midwestern riders–they go to Lamplight (as do some of ours), but in the heyday, we did have a fair amount from California and all of the western states. In fact, in many many years of showing there, I stabled next to riders from: New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Kansas (which surprisingly has a good concentration of Dressage), Missouri, Texas, and Wyoming… With careful planning (like three weekends of shows back to back, like they do for the H/J riders), people may have come and stabled there for three weeks of shows. We have large, vast regions of the west that are unserved and don’t have access to dressage shows. I feel this was a missed opportunity. I don’t feel like we needed more CDIs, but back to back national shows with perhaps a clinic or two attached, could have been an attractions, especially if there were concierge services (like they have in H/J) to find feed, bedding, accomodations, etc.
For some reason, there was a disconnect with our local dressage organizations. I don’t know if our organizations did not make an effort to partner with the CHP leadership or the opposite was true,or just old fashioned bad luck, but for many years, they hired, at last minute, the judges no one else wanted in the country. So while certain venues in more popular parts of the country enjoy all of the happy judges, which help to qualify professionals’ clients for regionals, here they hired judges who seemed to expect the rides to be bad and scored very low, who were erratic, or mean, or just didn’t write comments. People complained, weren’t heard, got sick of it and went to show elsewhere.
