Thank you, @StormyDay! I’ve been saying the same thing. For God’s sake, this is America. We are capitalists.
But when it comes to horse shows, USEF comes along and says, “Oh, but we have to protect the investments of the show organizers.”
Wait, what? Business people make investments at their own risk. If they have a good product or service, they’ll make money. If they don’t, they’ll cease to exist. Why can that principal be applied to every other industry except horse shows?
Judging from the way WEC South ran last winter? NSBA oversight should help SHP on the business front as well as run a good show.
I have always wondered how much of the membership dues are expropriated to the international competition. In which most regular members will never participate. I don’t know if there is a rule or policy that keeps grassroots member dues serving grassroots members.
I don’t know if it’s comparable, but the national trail riding association has broken with its FEI counterpart as well.
Interesting. Is this the reaction from USEF because of the willingness by some show management to abandon the USEF ratings of their shows?
Very interesting re the California circuit getting a blank slate! Maybe USEF is seeing the writing on the wall with the mileage rule?
I’d think that at least some of this might be due to the recent awarding of the Del Mar Horsepark lease to West Palm Events (hooray!). Showpark (the Horsepark) was shut down in 2019(?) for (IMO) no particularly good reason and has been vacant since; the State (facility owners) finally realized the error of their ways and there will hopefully be shows back on the property later this year.
All of the USEF action that had been at Showpark had been re-routed elsewhere, so redoing the calendar for 2023 makes sense if the facility is back in business.
My reading of it is that they also want to think about actual traveling distances and ease of travel between facilities as opposed to “as the crow flies.” For example, Temecula and Blenheim don’t look that far apart, but the reality is that many people aren’t going to haul over the Ortega Highway.
Also, a number of traditional dates got swapped during Covid shutdowns in 2020 and into 2021. Restrictions in LA county meant no shows there, so shows got moved. Getting facilities to be Covid compliant wasn’t trivial, so managers consolidated shows at a smaller number of venues; e.g. Robert Ridland running shows only at Blenheim as opposed to also at Showpark. My understanding is that the various managed teams actually cooperated.
West Palms took over the Langer dates. And now Showpark.
The former Sonoma manager decamped to Sacramento with the dates.
So what we have now looks like pre-2020 in some regards, but not in others. Maybe instead of continuing to patch they want to start (somewhat) anew. It will be interesting to see what shakes out and how similar it is to what we have now.
SHP 2022 is back in USEF – two shows in May approved. One A, one AA. They expect rolling approvals throughout the season for all their shows. Each show has to apply separately, in date order. 
USEF report on the California calendar. Includes link to proposed calendar.
https://links.usef.mkt7856.com/servlet/MailView?ms=MjA3Mjc0NTcS1&r=NDQyMTM1NjA3NjQxS0&j=MjM2MTc1MzM0OQS2&mt=1&rt=0
I judged at the second May show at SHP. It was grand, so many nice horses!
Looks like a reasonable proposal to me. Personally I’d like to see more regional shows in NorCal - seems like Brookside and Let’s Show, for example, don’t have many dates on here? Maybe they’ll slide into some of the open spots.
Good to hear. I think we’ll be there at the end of July for both weeks.
Trying to figure out if this is a good thing. At least the facility will be used. But I wasn’t impressed with the HITS version of Thermal.
I listened to an interview w Struzzieri and he almost semi admitted he needs help at the executive level so maybe the new COO (?) he hired w new investor money will make HITS better.
I can’t imagine that a HITS show is what we need at Showpark. I won’t go to Thernal anymore - the show is designed to get every last penny out of the exhibitors without offering anything of value in return. Showpark is my local show, and will wind up being overpriced and under resourced just like the other HITS venues. It’s a sad day.
The current, non-HITS, version of Thermal is nice. Not a budget venue, but they’ve made a lot of improvements.
GOOD for them. The USEF does not rule the world. Ocala proved that people want quality shows. Only a very small % care about qualifying for USEF finals. The new shows can have their own finals.
Except for most h/j shows- they went back to USEF and did not stay with SBA.
Including the very shows in this topic, at Sonoma Horse Park. They’ve secured USEF approval for many (most?) of their dates this year.
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