Dear Area IX Eventers,

I received word yesterday morning that Colorado Horse Park has cancelled all of its 2018 events except the AEC’s. “They want to put all of their eventing resources into producing a great AEC.”

I want to say thank you to our Area IX council. All of them have stepped up during this time of disappointment due to the cancellation of the CHP 2018 events. The entire council is doing leg work and coming up with ideas to help fill the gap in qualifying competitions with the resources at hand. It seems ironic that we have a big competition coming to Colorado only to have these events cancelled. The loss is most keenly felt by the Preliminary and up riders as well as the Young Riders.

There is some news about the AEC’s. The August date was always going to be cancelled due to the USEA policy of a hosting venue not running an event at least 30 days prior to the AEC. This AEC in Colorado will also host non-championship divisions. That means they will run a National level horse trials in conjunction with the AECs.

At present there are several possible scenarios to fill the June 1-3, 2018 date with at least a Preliminary event.

Unfortunately, we are in a holding pattern until several key players make a decision. We have one shot to run our plan by the USEA Board Of Governors and Executive Committee, so the plan must be comprehensive and complete.

In the meantime, think about what you can do as an individual to support our existing events and organizers. Our demands, needs, and expectations as riders have become more sophisticated. These changes are expensive to produce. Every show has its breaking point be it financial, hours in the day, venue constraints or simply growing old. Remember that by far and away Eventing is a labor of love on all fronts.

Thank you for your passion of Eventing,

Deeda Randle

Area IX Chair