The Chronicle has written an article this afternoon about some changes coming to Jersey Fresh:
“The Horse Park of New Jersey has announced three new divisions to the ninth edition of the Jersey Fresh Three Day Event, scheduled for May 11-15. In addition to its established CCI***, CCI** and CIC***, the Allentown event will now host a CIC** and U.S. Eventing Association Young Event Horse divisions for 4- and 5-year-old horses.
The entire competition will also operate under a new theme in 2011.
‘The whole event will honor the men and women who fight for our freedom,” said Horse Park trustee Lynn Mathews.'” [COTH]
I remember at Fair Hill last year that people were passing out flyers saying that Jersey Fresh wouldn’t be canceled in 2010, and representatives from Jersey Fresh have been trying to get that word out a lot lately. Frankly, publicizing “we won’t have to cancel” is disconcerting more than anything, but the event has embraced some important changes such as a revived fair and getting a positive word out in articles like on the Chronicle.
In 2009 there were 85 starters in the CCI2*, CIC3*, and the CCI3* combined, and there were 29 CCI3* starters. In 2010 there were only 55 entries between the CCI2*, CIC3*, and CCI3* combined meaning that there was a 35% decrease in total entries in 2010 from 2009. In 2008, Jersey only held the CCI2* and CCI3*, but there were 77 starters for those two divisions and 38 CCI3* starters. The CCI3* entries have decreased just over 40% since 2008.
From an eventer’s perspective, Jersey did a much better job last year than previous years. The courses were much better and the event ran quite smoothly. That being said, Bromont is the popular spring CCI3* right now, and even though Jersey is getting better, I’m not sure if they are going to be able to keep competing with Bromont. The one thing Jersey has going for it is that it comes a few weeks before Bromont so a lot of the riders set up to target Jersey and if something minor comes up right before Jersey they can re-route to Bromont. Go eventing.
