The Millbrook Horse Trials in New York, slated for July 30-Aug. 2, has been cancelled, which could mean additional entries for the Horse Park of New Jersey’s July 24-27 horse trials.
The Horse Park event has FEI competition in addition to national divisions. Will Millbrook’s cancellation send more entries to the park’s competition?
During Covid, it’s hard to predict what the riders will do.
“I don’t know which way they’ll go,” the park event’s co-organizer, Morgan Rowsell said, “but we’ll try to do our best to accept everybody we can.”
If that means adding an extra day, he’s up for it. The July event follows a very successful June horse trials at the park in Allentown. (See the headlined stories on this website.)
Morgan noted FEI riders are seeking to qualify for this fall’s three-day events–Jockey Club (Florida), Morven Park (Virginia) and the Virginia Horse Trials.
There should be even more riders looking for an FEI outing in the East when you add to the equation the fact that the organizer of Canada’s MARS Bromont CCI event and eventing Nations Cup slated for mid-August “has decided to consider dates further along the calendar,”
On July 2, the Canadian government extended the mandatory 14-day quarantine order for most people entering the country until the end of August to help curb the spread of the virus.
The order was set to expire July 7, but now will run until Aug. 31. That would make it difficult to run an event on the order of the MARS competition with competitors from the U.S.
Although the Millbrook organizers had been hopeful conditions were improving in their area, they noted “the recent increase in the spread of the coronavirus, related new regulatory restrictions, and the impact this has had on support within our communities has convinced us that we should not proceed.”