Winona Post Event Letter

I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for coming to the Winona Horse Trials and hope you and your horse had a good time.  We certainly enjoyed ourselves compared to last year which was a virtual washout!  Although that washout was the impetus for the new show jumping arena which I hope you all enjoyed.

After each competition we try to review what went well and what could use improvement before the next competition in order to make your time at SGF more enjoyable.  Obviously the big improvement for this year was the addition of the new show jumping arena but unfortunately the warm up was far from ideal. We were unable to buy any land adjacent to the new show jumping area and it appears that the final warm up  area, even when the grass fills in, probably won't be of sufficient size to be the only warm up area.   We realize that the warm up in the pasture was not idea with the hills and the cross country fences, but it was the best we could do while still being fairly close to the arena. However, it has been suggested that we use the former show jumping area as as the initial warm up area.  For those who are not familiar with that location; it is the large relatively flat area back by the large pond and the bank complex.   The down side is that it is quite a bit further away from the competition arena.  So before I make any changes I am asking for your input on the topic. Please take a couple minutes to answer a very brief survey concerning the Show Jumping warm up area and a couple of other questions.  Click here for a link to the survey.

Show jumping warm up aside; I didn't hear any complaints and I had many people who were very appreciative of the shuttle service.   Please let us know if there is anything else that we can do to make your stay more pleasant.

We hope you come back for our fall event Sept 22-23.  Here's a list of some things we planning on or thinking about:

• A completely different cross country track as we will be using the front hay fields instead of the start field
•  the big circular cement structure near the dressage arenas & stabling barns is scheduled to have it's roof put on next week so we'll have a large covered area that could certainly accommodate a competitors party if there is enough interest
• the new stadium numbers WILL be done (didn't quite get them done in time for Winona)
• more new show jumps and cross country fences 
• we're considering a college team challenge     

We have a lot of other activities on the calendar for this season; be sure to check them out on our website.




                                                                                          
Jackie