Dedicated to Furthering the Art of Dressage Through Education
LINKS OF INTEREST
- USDF
- USDF Reg 9
- Reg 9 Omnibus
- USEF
- SWDC
From the President - Kathy Jones
Greetings!
Greetings! I want to welcome Felicia Bures and Karla West Dee to the HDS Board. Karla took over the reins as Schooling Show Chair in December and Felicia Bures has filled the Special Events Chair.
Our annual awards banquet at the Sam Houston Race Park was a huge success. I want to thank Leslie Rohrer and Jaye Dunbar for helping with the planning, organization and implementation of the event. I also want to thank Katherine Stamp, our Bushager Grant winner, for taking most of the photographs at the event that you will see in this newsletter.
Our Spring Classic is almost upon us. We are very excited and proud to be hosting the first CDI3* and first CPEDI3* ever held in Region 9. Both are qualifiers for the Olympic selection trials to be held in June. One of our members, Jonathan Wentz, is highlighted in the February HDS Collective remarks newsletter. We need to support Jonathan in his efforts to make the Para Olympic team.
Gillian Gourlay is in need of many volunteers for this show. Please feel free to contact Gillian at englishgillian@prodigy.net. We have some foreign competitors coming to this show and what better way to showcase our wonderful Texas hospitality than to have more volunteers than we need to ensure that their experience here is a good one.
We have the Canadian para-team committed to coming to Houston as well as the Mexican para-team. The Canadian team is bringing their own horses, but the Mexican team wants to compete on borrowed horses. If you have a horse that has nice gaits, is pretty bomb-proof and can compete through second level, please contact me at kkj3156@sbcglobal.net or Kai Handt at info@uswarmblood.com. Please note that the horse must have a national passport issued by USEF at a minimum. An FEI passport would also suffice. In addition, we have interest from Venezuela, Japan and Australia. The para tickets for the Olympic Games are the hottest ticket in town. You won’t want to miss this special event at our show.
In 2013, HDS has submitted a bid to host the Great American/USDF Region 9 Championships at the Brazos Country Expo in Bryan, TX on October 17 -20, 2013. We were unable to negotiate a favorable date with Great Southwest Equestrian Center without meeting certain demands of GSWEC, which we were not willing to do. The facility in Bryan is beautiful! The facility was completed in 2011 and everything is new and clean. The event staff is awesome and the prices so reasonable that if we are awarded the bid, we will able to lower some of the show fees for competitors.
HDS will be hosting a regular show at the Brazos County Expo next year as a trial run if we are awarded the bid. They have 'Big Ass Fans' in the barns and 16 individual indoor wash racks as well as stabling for over 400 horses. You are able to unload your trailers under cover in the event that the weather is bad. I can’t say enough nice things about this facility. Many thanks to Donna Meyer for letting me know about this facility.
HDS is also going to submit a bid for SWDC at the same show. What does this mean to the competitors? Since we can only have three covered rings at the facility, there will not be any Open Show only competitors. Warm up rides on Saturday and Sunday will be extremely limited, if any, should HDS be awarded both championships. I will keep you informed of USDF’s decisions. I can tell you tha t Tyler (Texas Rose Horse Park) as well as GSWEC have submitted bids for championships in 2013. Feel free to call me for more information if you are interested.
As always, please feel free to give me a call at 832-722-6121 or email me at kkj3156@sbclgobal.net for any great ideas to improve our club.
Kathy Jones
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