Whidbey Island Horse Trials
42nd Annual - July 6, 7, & 8, 2018
ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING 2019 WHIDBEY ISLAND HORSE TRIALS - April 30, 2019
Whidbey Island Horse Trials sadly must announce that we will be unable to run a recognized Horse Trials for 2019. We have been keenly aware of the speculation surrounding the fate of the event and only held off from this decision as we worked to exhaust all our options with hope that we could offer this event in 2019. We know you look forward to and make plans early for joining us and we are sorry for any inconvenience that this change presents. We do plan to offer a fun unrecognized competition during our normal event weekend (July 12-14) and plan to collaborate with the eventing community to offer an competition that works with your training needs. Stay tuned for news about that.
So why has this happened? Whidbey Island Horse Trials does not own the land where the event is held and while we have a lease for about 50 acres of land, in order to run a recognized event, we must utilize adjacent farm land for stabling, dressage rings, and cross-country tracks and have done so since the mid-1990's under agreement with the farmers that cultivate the land. Changes in recent years to farming activities have led to us being restricted to only having use of our 50 acres and the single lane South access drive.
What about future events? We plan to run an event in 2020 as we have secured access to alternate property. Our long-term goal is to acquire a permanent event site and we will be looking to our eventing community's support in our effort to raise funds that will guarantee a permanent home for the Whidbey Island Horse Trials. Whidbey Island Horse Trials is the longest running event in Area VII - our first event ran in 1974. When we were forced to relocate in 1996, we also had a pause, and just like in 1997, we will be back in 2020.
