More rain for the East Coast! Yesterday's radar via Intellicast.
The rain continues to pour on the East Coast — as it has been for weeks — greatly affecting a number of horse trials. We reported earlier this month on the cancellation of the October Horse Trials at Chattahoochee Hills due to bad weather and high traffic on the property. This last week we’ve seen two other events forced to make tough decisions.
Paradise Farm in Aiken, South Carolina made the call Saturday morning to cancel their event due to severe weather conditions in the forecast. While there have been reports that the skies eventually cleared and riders were able to school the courses before heading home, it is no doubt a difficult circumstance for the organizer to be in and ultimately safety must be the priority.
“We can not thank everyone enough for all their efforts to help us try and pull off a horse trial. Very sadly, the weather fooled us and we chose to cancel, only to end up having a decent afternoon where we could have run,” read a post on the Paradise Farm Facebook page.
“The decision to cancel a competition is not made lightly nor personally. Much thought went into the decision and I was proud and honored to work with a great ground jury, safety team, and all those that were a part of the event. Endless hours, people and effort make up the creation and execution of a horse trials. We were all sad to cancel.”
Windridge Horse Trials, in Mooresboro, North Carolina, was forced to cancel their horse trials last weekend due to high winds and heavy rain in the wake of Hurricane Joaquin. Organizer Alicia Henderson applied for an emergency date change for yesterday, October 10. Even though it was still raining in Western North Carolina this weekend, they were able to run all three phases from Starter through the Preliminary level. You can see the full results here.
The weather has been a tough force for the East Coast recently and here’s hoping we enjoy sunny, clear skies soon. Thank you to all the organizers who work so hard to run horse trials and the riders who brave the conditions to do what they love.
If you need a refresher on just how drastically the recent heavy rain has been affecting the Carolinas, read about the 1,000 year flooding event on our sister site, Horse Nation.
