Nice to see. Even with a mask on yesterday, I’ve got a sore throat and congestion. I did hear a few comments that “it wasn’t that bad” yesterday, but they were outweighed by folks disappointed by the circumstances but saying the right call was made.
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I can’t believe people were riding in that. Poor horses.
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I can’t believe people were hauling in that.
Where did you find the updated schedule. I was headed there Saturday to watch the derby and want to make sure I time everything correctly (it’s a 3 hour drive).
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Wednesday was absolutely HORRIBLE in that part of NJ. Yesterday was better but still very far from normal. Wednesday was ATROCIOUS.
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I’ve been viewing it through HorseShowsOnline > Ring Schedule. Prolly not the most straightforward way but it was what worked best for me with a weak cell signal.
DD16 was volunteering yesterday and I drove over at noon to eat lunch with her while we waited for the 12:30 announcement. IMO, it was worse on the showgrounds than back at home (12 miles away) because the valley holds it in. I had a headache after 45 minutes. Couldn’t believe the number of people still lunging horses and cantering up and down the hack field. 
Riding around at a walk would’ve been completely understand in my book – sometimes you just do what you gotta do to keep a bored, restless horse from hanging himself up in the stall. Cantering around a 20 acre field probably isn’t one of those things…
On the plus side, I heard no one complaining. DD16 did overhear one trainer complaining to show staff after the initial stoppage around 10:45am. Given who it was, I’m completely unsurprised.
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It’s also posted on their FB page.
Debating whether I want to head out to watch the sidesaddle and derby tomorrow. So bummed I had surgery earlier this week and couldn’t do the TB class again this year, but hopefully next year we’ll be in the ring again 
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I’m a bit surprised people are jumping back into showing so quickly. As a veteran of wildfire smoke, our vet advise that once the air quality returns to normal, horses still should get one day off for every day of poor air quality to give their lungs time to recover. And even then he recommends a gradual return to work, not jumping right back into the daily routine.
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I was thinking the same thing. UC Davis did a whole outline on this a few years back when PNW and California fires were out of control and most of the recommendations require some amount of time off
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Thirding the bemusement at how quickly folks are ramping back up, and how much confusion there’s been (across all aspects of society, not just equestrian). As a Californian, sadly dealing with wildfire-induced AQI issues is old hat by now. I suppose I assumed that the rest of the country would have learned the lessons alongside us, but I suppose not. I hope the horses recover without too much incident. 
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I didn’t know this! Thank you for sharing your vet’s guidance.
My horse is retired, but will be pleased to know he has another day off from checking fences.
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I didn’t know this, but I felt like crap on Friday even though air quality was okay again. I figured if I didn’t feel good the horses didn’t either. But today I’m feeling fine, and the horses are back to trotting around in the pasture, so if I was signed up to show…. I probably would. 
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No excuse. Trainers who are paid to look after their clients’ horses can’t figure it out, but they all know the dosages to “prep” a horse ?
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Yeahhhh… I don’t recall Summer in the Rockies ever being postponed or canceled due to smoke. It’s kind of just the way things happen from June-September.
I do think that being at sea level probably is make it a bit more intense… so I do sympathize with the idea that it’s just sitting there with not a ton of wind or conditions for free-flow of air.
Colorado didn’t have to deal with humidity and other factors that seems to also add to the east coast stress. Fire season wasn’t great, but I think it wasn’t something that anyone really cared much about except for when you had ash snowflakes or if your eyes got super irritated when it came close to foothills or Denver/Boulder.
The Denver area has air quality alert days all the time related to ozone and other pollution anyway, and along with the elevation, the smoke can have a greater effect on our surface air. Maybe people don’t care as much because it’s like a daily thing in the summer even without smoke, but knowing cancellation for refund was unlikely, I wouldn’t sign up for SIR with my asthma horse in bad wildfire years…by the time the week you want to do rolls around who knows what the air will be like. That said, I do know people who were riding at a clinic in my area in CO the day after the AQI had gotten up over 500! I can understand some ignorance where this is an unprecedented event, but clearly not everyone makes great decisions even when they should know better. I think USEF has only recently been doing things like advising on these kinds of cancellations, which I think is good for taking some pressure off promoters.
How can the humans even breathe with AQI over 500! I mean, people are presumably doing something up there on the horse that requires breathing. And effort. I noticed on our worst AQI day in my area, there was one show venue that just had a delayed opening. Not sure what that was supposed to do, because the AQI got worse over time.
I understand it’s a massive logistical headache for shows to reschedule things. But sometimes I really SMH when shows carry on when it’s pretty clear that the risks to riders and horses outweigh any benefits (such as icy conditions, hail, actual flooding versus just hard rain).
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Yep. You can’t drive down I25 or I70 without an Ozone Alert on any given day in July and August.
Perhaps the inevitable 3pm afternoon monsoons help with it, but it’s still there. I’ve definitely had days and days of my eyes itching and even a day or two where you could see ash on the cars when the fires were up in Red Feather Lakes area.
However, I do think that maybe the sea level factor and the humidity may also exacerbate the situation, not to mention, it’s not commonplace for these areas, so it’s basically the apocalypse to them.
