Santa Anita Park Confirmed as Venue for Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 Equestrian Events

[coffeehag]

Santa Anita Park, located in proximity to the Los Angeles city area, has been confirmed as the venue of the equestrian events of the Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 (LA28).

“Santa Anita Park will be a spectacular venue for the LA28 Olympic equestrian events,” FEI President Ingmar De Vos said.

“The FEI has very fond memories of Santa Anita, which had hosted the equestrian events at the 1984 Olympic Games. The venue is set to offer a breathtaking stage for all the Olympic equestrian competitions and the proximity to LA City will undoubtedly attract many spectators to Santa Anita. We look forward to continuing our cooperation with LA28 to deliver spectacular equestrian events at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.”

[…]

Santa Anita covers 130Ha (320 acres) and includes a 340m-long (1,100-foot) grandstand that seats 26,000 spectators. The track infield area, which resembles a park with picnic tables and large trees, can accommodate a crowd of 50,000. The Park has 61 barns that can house more than 2,000 horses.

The venue for the Para Equestrian events will be announced at a later date following the review and approval of the International Paralympic Committee Governing Board.

Press release here

[2DogsFarm]

Drat!
My parents lived in the SF Valley, so did my brother.
He’s now in Vegas, but a not terrible drive, or short cheap flight to LA.
Probably package-priced out of my range, but in 3yrs, a Maybe.

[paint_hunter]

My SIL lives in Pasadena. Guess who will have a houseguest for those dates, lol. I went to the Games in 1984 as well held at Santa Anita (well, not the XC portion down in San Diego at Fairbanks Ranch IIRC). I will never forget Reiner Klimke’s “victory round” on Ahlerich with all those tempe changes, holding his top hat in one hand and his other hand holding the reins.

[MHM]

Why it was Santa Anita for the LA28 Olympic equestrian venue (Updated) -...

[RAyers]

The comments made and focus of this article are further proof of the intent to kill eventing.

[trubandloki]

I asked in one of the other threads on this topic but going to ask here too -

Look at the photo in that article has me wondering, where will they put any rings? The park (as the article describes it) infield does not look like there is space to accommodate rings.
Even though there are large grandstands, how will they be close enough for people to see anything, wherever it is that they put the competition rings?
Where was the ring for the show jumping thing they talk about in the article?

[paint_hunter]

In 1984, the arena ( show jumping, dressage, 3-day show jumping, etc ) was actually part of the racetrack in front of the grandstands. To accommodate all the spectators, additional seating, bleachers, (no shade) were erected on the infield side of the track, opposite the permanent grandstand. I bought my “season ticket/pass” as soon as tickets became available, paid for “best/top” seating, yet the folks assigning seats put mine in the uncovered bleachers on the infield side. I remember it being beastly hot, sitting there for hours and hours each day. And I had some friends who also attended, but bought their tickets many months later, and they were seated in the covered grandstands. Go figure.

I was there for two weeks and one of my memories was noting the “decreasing visibility” of the San Gabriel mountains in the background. At the start of the Games, the mountains were clearly visible….at the end, you could barely see them, if at all, due to all the air pollution

[MHM]

I don’t know the plan.

But I believe there was a Split Rock jumper show there within the last year, and I think they’re planning to do another one this year.

And I know that this week Split Rock is running a straight jumper show in the same place at the same time as the three day event at the Kentucky Horse Park, and using the same ring at different times of day for dressage and straight show jumping. So there must be a way to make it work somehow.

As far as where they’re going to put a cross country course, I have no idea.

This illustration from the Split Rock website shows they can fit two show rings and two warm up rings plus a bunch of other stuff into the infield at Santa Anita for their jumper shows.

Home Page - Split Rock Santa Anita

[Aussie_2020]

I was in those ‘hot seats’ in 84, and loved every minute of it. Yeah it was hot, it’s CA in the summer. There seemed to be plenty of room, for people and horses.

My favorite memory is when the jumpers were doing their victory round and one of them found themselves at a jump, so they jumped it and kept galloping on with the team. If there had been rafters over our seating we would have raised them by all the cheering.

And the cross country venue was fabulous. Part of the steeplechase course was right next to the grounds entry. We got there just in time to see Bruce Davidson gallop by as if he was on a 2 ft hunter course.

Los Angeles is a terrific city for world travelers. So much to do, and the beaches

[MHM]

This video is from the Split Rock horse show at Santa Anita last fall. It shows how they managed to fit a whole horse show in the infield, although I’m guessing the horses were living in the racehorse barns.

https://www.youtube.com/live/x65u4PPTqeE?si=oTbBo3FnWSh_gUHB

[trubandloki]

@MHM

This video is from the Split Rock horse show at Santa Anita last fall. It shows how they managed to fit a whole horse show in the infield, although I’m guessing the horses were living in the racehorse barns.

https://www.youtube.com/live/x65u4PPTqeE?si=oTbBo3FnWSh_gUHB

I did not watch the whole two hour video, how many rings did they have going?

[MHM]

I believe there were two jumper rings with a separate warm up ring for each one.

Plus a big VIP/vendor area which was taking up a lot of space. So I would imagine there would actually be room for more rings if they needed them.

But with the very limited number of horses at the Olympics, and the fact that I think the competition days generally don’t overlap between disciplines, I don’t know how many separate show rings they would really need at one time.

[Aussie_2020]

At their next show it would be great if they panned the surrounding area so you could see the whole set up. I know the video was for the competition so only showed them jumping but it would be cool to see where they are stabled and the warm up rings.

[Peggy]

@Aussie_2020 @MHM etc

Here’s a Karl Cook interview from the Santa Anita show last November that will give you an idea of the setup.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DDNTDc6SSCg/?hl=en

I showed there, in the meters in ring 2. The rings were added before the show and were supposed to remain after the show, according to the people I talked to in the show office when I checked out. The main ring they used is not large enough for the FEI Olympic standard (dressage, SJ, and two of the three phases of eventing are all in the same ring) so would have to be expanded or relocated. They could probably push it out towards the track grandstand and at the (west?) end where they had the bleachers The warmup for the main ring was pretty big.

They have the World Cup qualifier contract for the period of time it’s typically awarded which is either three or four years.

The ring I showed in wasn’t huge but was square which was kind of interesting. The warmup for that ring was not well organized They set up bleachers along the rail effectively in the warmup ring so you had people, including some who weren’t horse savvy, traipsing across the warmup ring. Furthermore, people tended to congregate on horses behind the bleachers which limited the effective area for warmup even more. If you think that the jumper 3/4/5 warmup at Thermal is bad, this was worse.

The stabling and two schooling rings were in the parking lot across from the track backstretch (beyond lower left corner of layout pictured above). That was all going to disappear after the show. The stalls had mats which you paid for on top of the stall fee. The stabling was pretty dark inside: they had aisles running across the short dimension and the roof was pretty low. They didn’t use the track barns bc there were horses stabled there. The show actually started at about 10 am each day to accommodate the race horse morning works.

Some photos from the show
Main ring:

From the schooling area on the stabling side of the track:

From ring two, one showing the wonderful warmup area and then on to the track (and stabling which is beyond the track) and another showing the grandstand view):

[MHM]

Very interesting! Thanks for the inside scoop!

So was the set up when you were there similar to the illustration that I posted earlier in the thread from their website?

[Peggy]

Yes. Same setup (maybe not 100% to scale) but the diagram didn’t show the barns and adjacent schooling area.

Adding that it was a super-fun show but would not recommend it for a green horse. I was very grateful for mine that’s shown kind of everywhere.

[Willesdon]

The Olympic equestrian disciplines are held sequentially. There only needs to be a warm up area and a competition arena and these will be used by all three disciplines, one after the other. I presume a portion of the race track will also be available for exercise purposes. There are only some 200 horses in total involved in the Olympics. Unlike normal shows, there are no mounted riders just hanging around or random crowds of people congregating together. There isn’t any shopping or commercial hospitality at the Olympics so that won’t take any space. The biggest conundrum is where to put the Eventing cross country course but Greenwich Park, successfully used in the 2012 version, only covers 180 acres.