Another development in a whacky horse world week.
https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/hits-announces-sale-of-desert-circuit-and-arizona-series
And not even the whole week! Just the five day work week. Super, super, super crazy.
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Interesting. Last summer, Hankin was bigly pushing for a revitalization of the LAEC via a public/private partnership.
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Went to the Arizona show, two different weeks, to watch this winter. Amazing setting but very few entries - don’t think the Arizona shows could have been profitable.
Me thinks with the opening of WEC south, HITS needed the money to renovate their Ocala facility to at least try to keep some business in the winter.
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I mean, yes, he says that in an article about the sale. No speculation needed, this is about freeing up and raising cash to retrofit ocala.
bigly. well-played!
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He has a lot of catching up to do. WEC is going to be amazing.
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Do you guys think this is some kind of early rat off a sinking ship of the big, destination horse show?
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Having more different people involved in running these big shows is probably good in the long term, rather than it being concentrated in one person’s vision.
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No. They seem to be pretty entrenched. Going somewhere warm in winter to show is a big part of the h/j experience at the AA+ level. I don’t know if the winter migration numbers are big enough in the western part of the US to adequately support circuits in both SoCal and AZ; I would expect the SoCal circuit to continue to be the primary one.
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I definitely think the CA destination show is not a sinking ship and Ocala does need help.
If done well I think Ocala can be successful even with wec there. I know I’m looking at property
Europe manages to do just fine with a bunch of decent csi venues super close together in Holland and belgium.
This is of course predicated on them actually doing a good job in ocala, which would be something new for that outfit :lol:
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Two and a half years ago he was saying he wanted to revitalize the L.A horse show scene.
https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2017/10/12/steve-lisa-hankin-undeniably-all-in/
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Does this include the Thermal facility? And since the HITS AZ shows are at the Pima County fairgrounds, does the “sale” just comprise the dates for those shows?
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Agreed. To me, it makes more economic sense to sell HITS Ocala and concentrate on areas with less competition.
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HITS AZ has been a joke for awhile now. He just kept it going to keep anyone else competing against Thermal. It would be great if someone would come in and make the AZ shows competitive again
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Have you ever heard of the mileage rule?? The shows at the two venues will not run concurrently. HITS Ocala will be just fine due to those golden dates.
My opinion on Ocala is that Wec will be to hits as the ridge is to WEF. Plenty of opportunity to have unrated classes that throw out money and special status to hold an international derby. I also think the unrated shows work well for people bringing along young horses. I myself would love to get babies out unrated/less expensive if the venue is good. But if I want to qualify for indoors or devon I need rated shows. There is a big market for WEC during non hits dates as well. So many people are choosing to stay in Ocala year round. Fox Lea Farm in Venice is likely to suffer from that. Especially because WEC is air conditioning the indoors and barns.
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Absolutely agree with this. There is no way HITS Ocala can go toe-to-toe with WEC. They need a different strategy.
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The mileage rule doesn’t mean WEC is not competition. Sure, people won’t have to pick which one to show at in the same week, but if people have to choose between spending $5k on one show either one week at HITS or the next week at WEC (assuming they have completely open availability for either week) they’re probably going to pick the show where they get the most bang for their buck. As it stands, without improvements to the HITS grounds, that will be WEC.
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