Heard this today. See that so far only 2 weekend only 2 day shows still on the schedule. All the big 5 day stuff is gone.
What exactly happened there?
Anyone know?
Emily
I saw a friend’s FB this morning that they were heading to KY instead of Princeton, and that their stabling check had been cashed already…yikes
These shows never drew the sort of crowds that I thought were possible given who is in our area. I never showed there so I won’t guess as to why.
I took a look at horseshowing.com because I thought I remembered their earlier spring horse shows having decent entry numbers and it appears they did - 36 in the low child / adults, 46 in the high child / adults, 21 in the grand prix … while obviously not all the numbers were that high, they appeared pretty decent across a large number of classes.
I think the shows are nice - good footing, nice rings and jumps, well run. I really don’t understand why the numbers dropped so drastically for the June shows; perhaps too much show to show competition?
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I’ve been there and it seems like a nice facility, good footing, two rings (they were building the third when I was there) but it seems to be mostly jumpers. My guess is that it’s hard to draw the bigger barns that may have jumper, hunter, and eq kids. There were hardly any hunter entries when I was there (I think maybe three or four in each class) - since trainers have so much choice now, perhaps they are choosing to go to bigger shows where they can bring all of their clients and not worry about splitting resources across different shows.
They have the same challenge that the Devon Fall Classic does. When you’re JUMPER only… it’s really hard to bring in the sort of trainers who bring the whole barn (because most barns are not exclusively jumper riders). And of the BIG BIG jumper barns in the area, for whatever reason some of them just never did Princeton. It’s close and seemed nice but I can think of BNTs in the area who’d drive much further rather than go to those shows. I don’t know why.
Yes… rings are excellent, good jumps, good courses, etc., but the show management has a terrible reputation. It’s a show of last resort for many when you need to get the horses out to a better facility and don’t have other options (which there are in the summer.) It’s too bad - the facility has so much promise.
It will be pulling teeth to get that money refunded. (It’s hard to even get prize money paid out.) Just one of the reasons it’s not a popular show…
I wanted to show there last year. But did not because you had to join horseshowing.com to enter and that was a cost I did not need because I can just email entries to other shows. And then there would be a big office fees and the classes were just too expensive! Yes it looked really nice, but I would rather pay a lot less money and go to another nice show. It is just way too expensive.
Exactly!! I use horseshowing.com a lot, but the cost of these shows are just too pricey for many. It’s not worth it. To do a 3’ hunter division and the derby we could go to a much nicer show for the entire weekend with the stall fee and have it be about the same price…
We haven’t gone to one yet. I know people who have and have liked the venue but the fees are killers.That is why we haven’t gone yet. IIRC the divisions were also spread out over multiple days. We are close enough to make this a one day show and would rather do three classes in a day. I don’t like trailering that far multiple days in a row.
I have attended MANY of their horse shows, and each one gets a little worse. In my opinion, the “lack of entries” may be a result of a few of the following: extremely expensive office/grounds fees, ship-in parking that is a PIA to get back and forth to (they would of course prefer you to get stalls, but for local exhibitors showing for one day, ship-in parking should be closer to the rings and further from the road), lack of schooling opportunity on the weekends (because they want you to come earlier in the week, which does not work for the average amateur with a JOB or a kid who can only get out there for the weekend stuff).
The biggest issue that I (and others) encountered at the last horse show was in-gate personnel that are CLUELESS and management that let things become disorganized and did not take the initiative to make adjustments. It took THREE hours to get thru the .90m outreach Jumpers (holding the ring for people that had ALREADY gone, trainers that were on the entry list but never actually checked in at the gate, etc), meaning that the rated hunter classes scheduled to run in that ring after the outreach stuff had to be moved… however, they did not make the decision to move those hunter divisions until a ridiculous amount of time it gone by and one of the hunter rings had been sitting empty since the conclusion of the ponies. As trainers, we had to beg, plead, and almost bully the clueless college aged ingate girl into asking management to run the hunters as an open card, as all classes that were left ran at the same height and we were literally running out of daylight ( at rated shows, they can only have so many open cards running at one time, but luckily for us all of the other rings were finished for the day, so it should have been a non-issue )… The flat classes went after the sun went down and the judge had to come into the middle of the ring in order to see everyone because they have no lights and it was so dark. I feel badly for the equitation division that was scheduled to go after that .
During summertime, there are so many other options that are less expensive and better managed. The average exhibitor in the Pennsylvania/New Jersey area that would be attending a horse show like Princeton is not the type of exhibitor that’s going to go travel the circuit and has the cash flow to finance it…Going to horse shows isn’t cheap, and with so many other nice options in our area, why would the average local equestrian blow all of their money on a 16 hour day that is not only disorganized but lacking hospitality and “creature comforts” such as schooling breaks, an educated ingate person that is capable of keeping the show moving (which is basically their only job), and something as simple as lights in the ring for those instances where we do run out of daylight… They spent a ton of money on all sorts of other stuff, you would think they would throw some lights up.
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Yes I had to wait for an hour to have the AO Hunter jumps raised to 3’6. Finally the judge came out and did it herself! I rode over to entry office and notified them. The “girl” at the gate had no one to call on her radio- not even sure why they gave her one! I won a ton of money tho and it covered my entries, stall and hotel room.
