Remember your favorite horse show from the past, the one that ran for a weekend, or perhaps a day or two longer, located just a short trailer ride from your barn? For people in the area, it was a special event and often a first opportunity to watch horses competing.
Chances are, that show isn’t there anymore. Aside from the nostalgia factor, its absence means there’s one less place for riders to start showing close to home. Except that’s not just one place at this stage.
“In the old days,” U.S. Hunter Jumper Association President Britt McCormick said during an Open Discussion Town Hall this month, “We went to a different venue every week, and I think that’s what people have a fond memory of. But that’s just not the world we live in anymore.”
It isn’t, and the subject is a topic of very engaged discussion across the country about the future of the sport’s base. The upper end, where money is no object, is doing just fine.
Britt asked show manager Allen Rheinheimer for his perspective on the situation and got quite a response. Why did we make this a featured story? Because Allen’s observations deserve a wider audience than just those who tuned in to the Town Hall; so many in equestrian sport are looking for answers. But they aren’t easy to come by.
“I see these smaller shows, these boutique shows, that are across the board going away due to these large mega shows, where people can go and stay for several weeks at a time,” Allen commented.
Giving an example, he said, “We struggled at Lake Placid, a two-week U.S. Equestrian Federation Heritage Competition he manages in upstate New York.
“It was a dying horse show. We spent a tremendous amount of money to bring that show up to date.
“Now we’re over-subscribed, we’ve got the opposite effect of what was happening before. But when those small shows, the boutique shows, go away and everybody has to go to these big box shows, I think it’s going to be a very tough industry to be involved with, not having the variety. I think expenses will probably rise again, because those boutique shows will start going away.”
Already, “They have gone away quite a bit across the board. The whole East Coast has changed quite a bit. A lot of shows have dissolved over the years, the Midwest as well. It’s a problem.”
Exhibitors at smaller shows may have come to expect high-end footing, fancy jumps and some of the amenities that come with a higher-price point, but then they can’t afford their entries if a competition raises fees to cover such costs.
So what is the answer?
According to Allen, “We have to spark interest in this industry, somehow to give back to the consumer. What are we going to do for sparking interest back in this game that we play every day, and how do we give these people something back as a true finals?
“There’s a lot more industry players out there that need drive to continue on, I think we’re losing that drive in this industry. How do we do that? I’m not sure.”
Allen, production manager of the perennially sold-out Wrangler National Finals Rodeo held in Las Vegas each December, said, “I see how that works and how they have a large event at the end of the year that sparks a lot of interest to the drive of the grassroots. We don’t have that in our sport.
The National Finals Rodeo is always a sellout.
“Our indoor shows are gone. Basically, they’re not what they used to be. and that’s due to the cost of the industry as well. How do we handle that in moving forward?
“We all have to be together and figure out what does that for the group as a whole, not just as the organizers trying to make their shows affordable and unique enough that people want to come.”
Britt emphasized, “We as an association don’t want to compete with the organizers. But at the same time, we have to come up with those products that give people that carrot.”
So what about that carrot?
“All the different lower-level or equitation divisions that are created and all these young horses and all these year-end championships for them, I don’t know that’s the way to go,” Allen observed.
“I think we need to reduce some of that, because I think there’s too much of that now.”
He pointed out that at the Lexington National Horse Show, which he runs in Virginia, there is a full page of equitation classes that are offered.
“We’re getting away from the bigger picture of where we want these people to move to, and I think we’re just making it less attractive for people to move up. I know it’s easier to move down all the time and stay down there,” he commented.
“I think we need to make it more attractive to move up and I think that’s part of the problem you have now.”
So we know the problem. It’s a situation that requires a lot more thought, and a lot more work. Keep the discussion going.
