This post should be filed under the “organizers are amazing and deserve a special section of heaven all to themselves” category. Colorado’s organizer, Deeda Randle, sent out an email to all of the competitors earlier this morning announcing that due to the EHV-1 outbreak out west the Horse Trials component of their June 3-5 event has been canceled along with the COJA Jumper Show and the Dressage Show that was supposed to run simultaneously with the event. However, because the Colorado three-day is the last chance for several young riders to qualify for the North American Young Riders Championship, the organizers have announced that the CCI* and CCI** portion of the event will continue. They are going through all of this effort for less than 20 horses, which is an incredible testament to dedication to our sport from the folks at the Colorado Horse Park.
I spoke with Deeda this afternoon and she told me that after long consideration the event’s FEI veterinarian had determined that it would be too risky to try to manage so many horses on the property with the horse trials, three-day, dressage competition, and jumper show all running together. The veterinary staff is comfortable that the small number of horses in the three-day divisions will provide a very manageable number of horses for the vets to monitor throughout the weekend.
Deeda told me that the Colorado Horse Park’s founder, Helen Krieble, has been a “long time advocate for the young rider program.” Thank you Deeda, Helen, and all of the fine folks at the Colorado Horse Park for going to such lengths to host an event for so few horses so that they will have the opportunity to continue with the rest of their season. Go eventing.
Update: The USEA has issues a press release about the cancellation
