The Ocala eventing community has built an awesome eventing mecca built upon top coaching, good facilities, good support staff, and of course great events. Rider, event organizer, and EN guest writer Jon Holling is kind enough to write to us today about the progress of the November series and a shout-out to Ocala Horse Properties, an EN sponsor. Thanks for writing this Jon and thank you for reading.
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From Jon Holling:
Ocala Horse Properties
It’s beginning to feel a lot like winter here in Ocala. Part of that is absolutely due to the cooler temperatures, but the biggest reason is the upcoming horse trials in the area. The one that is most pressing on my mind is of course the Ocala Horse Properties Horse Trials. The kick off for this fantastic series held at the Florida Horse Park is just two short weeks away on November 17th. The aggravator that has been generously lent to us by Sharon Will has been hard at work in the show jumping field, and the rental equipment we need to move the jumps into place will be arriving first thing Monday morning. In addition to the great cross country fences that our designer and builder Jay Hambly has put together for us, we are very excited about our new show jumps. A huge portion of our budget for last year went into replacing the aging course that we had been using, and I am happy to report that all of the jumps are now ready. I am certain they will add a huge amount of atmosphere to the already great facilities at the park.
The thing that always amazes me about being a part of this great series of events are the man hours involved in putting it on. Without the endless hours that our volunteer base puts in, these competitions simply would not run. Honestly I know that we as competitors hear that all the time, but as someone who sits squarely on both sides of the fence on this one, I can tell you it is true. Just think about that….no volunteers absolutely no events…..period. The really interesting thing is that most of the volunteers we get are not even competitors. The majority of them are actually people that are inspired by their love of the horse, and by all of us as eventers. Pretty cool stuff really.
The other really neat thing going on with this year’s series of events is that Equiventures has put a huge amount of time and money into publicity. The Ocala Horse Properties Horse Trials sits right in the middle of one of the biggest and best horse areas in the world. Having the community of Ocala and Belleview become a huge part of the events is really a no brainer. However, getting the word out about our great sport has taken a tremendous amount of work from a lot of great people. What this means for our competitors is a bigger audience, a bigger and better trade fair, more fun things for spectators and competitors to do throughout the events, and of course better courses and footing.
We sincerely hope that you can come to at least one of these great events. I know you will be impressed by the quality of the competition, and the fantastic time you will have. Of course none of this would be possible without our good friends Chris and Rob Desino and Ocala Horse Properties, and all of our other sponsors. Please check out our website at www.equiventures.com so that you can get to know each and every person and the company that makes this all happen. Every piece that we write about our series ends with the slogan “Competition by eventers for eventers.” I can’t think of a better way to define our events than that.
