KyWEGO® Kentucky World Equestrian Games Citizens Action Group
So the color arrived about a month late just in time for the leaves to fall off the trees but I did get a few decent pictures locally and have seen enough other pictures to say it wasn’t a totally disappointing Fall in regards to color.
So the weather has continued to be warm and wet this week and that has seemingly slowed the color change to a crawl. The truth is the leaves are changing and dropping a little at a time so by the time the process really gets going there may not be many leaves left. The best colors that we are hearing about are several hours away in the Blue Ridge mountains above the 5000 foot mark.
There is a strong cold front rolling through tonight that will usher in more normal temperatures for this time of the year. We are expected to see several mornings in the 30’s that will hopefully kick start more color for next weekend. Of course wind and rain is not a good combination when you want leaves to stay on a tree but thinking the leave loss won’t be too great.
I snapped a few pictures late in the day with the sun coming through the clouds.
Kentucky Colonel
Thomas P. Demond
KyWEGO®
Its hard to believe its Fall in Kentucky given the warm temperatures, and though the temperatures are warm the days grow shorter and that brings on the amazing change of our Fall colors. Kentucky has been blessed with an abundance of foliage types that provide for a collage of colors and textures this time of year.
The warmth and abundance of moisture has slowed the process but it can’t stop it, so currently in Central Kentucky the colors are minimal and seem limited to our Poplars and Ash trees, with the primary color being yellow. In Kentucky the best place for early colors is South Eastern Kentucky where colors should be nearing their peak and it progresses to the North West over about 2 weeks, though based on what I am seeing the peak dates could be late by as much as 2 weeks. I will try and get out to a number of places to get pictures to document the change.
As for where to go see the colors, I am going to recommend a number of our State Parks for weekend getaways to see the colors over my next couple of posts. I will start with Pine Mountain State Resort Park because of its location and elevation should be seeing good colors. I will check with my sources over the next couple of days to get some more detailed information on the colors down there and see what the latest weather forecast is for the next weekend.
Kentucky Colonel
Thomas P. Demond
KyWEGO®
I have decided I am going to do some house keeping on the site and wanted to see about getting some others maybe interested in doing some feature writing. There would certainly be compensation and maybe a few perks though don’t expect a matching 401K. My initial area of interest is around Kentucky’s State Parks which I kicked off last month and intend on posting more from my own experiences but would love to have other people’s view points. Who knows, in this day an age it may devolve into a battle of the parks with hopefully actually getting together next summer at the winning park. Certainly hoping to get some takers to talk about what Parks have the best fall colors.
Kentucky Colonel
Thomas P. Demond
KyWEGO®
Pine Mountain State Resort Park opened in 1924 and has the distinction of being Kentucky’s first State Park. Though it maybe our oldest State Park the accommodations are not dated and I certainly would recommend it having visited it earlier this summer. The 30 room Herndon J. Evans Lodge is the primary lodging within the park, there are also 21 Cabins on the grounds as well. The lodge is situated in such a way that all the rooms have wonderful views from their balconies looking roughly south-west down the valley. The Mountain View Restaurant is attached to the lodge and also takes advantage of this view and seats 125 people. I also highly recommend the food, we generally had both breakfast and dinner there as we were out exploring at lunch so made other plans. I will save the recreation activities for my next post and will end this post with the general contact information and website.
Pine Mountain State Resort Park
1050 State Park Road
Pineville, KY 40977
Phone: 606-337-3066
Email: rita.jackson-edmondson@ky.gov
Website: https://parks.ky.gov/pineville/parks/resort/pine-mountain-state-resort-park
Kentucky Colonel
Thomas P. Demond
KyWEGO®
This blog obviously started out almost 16 years ago in support of Kentucky’s hosting of the World Equestrian Games and I have continued to push the idea of Kentucky hosting the games again should they ever be revived as a singular World Championship style event but I think its time to take a different direction, a new horizon you may say. The Kentucky World Equestrian Games in 2010 were an incredible event that I think show cased Kentucky in so many positive ways, but Kentucky has always been an amazing place and I am proud to have called it my home for nearly 40 years and so I am going to take my enthusiasm for Kentucky to hopefully get many of you to say, Ky WE GO as you plan your next adventure.
I am going to start with our Kentucky State Parks which I count as one of those undiscovered Gems that many people outside and are I say inside Kentucky do not know much about. Kentucky has 45 State Parks, which certainly isn’t the most in the U.S., but what we lack in numbers we make up for in family fun and new discoveries as everyone of our parks has something different to offer. One of the cool things about our State Parks goes back to the unique geography and ecology of Kentucky given its location on the North American continent. I am not going to go into great detail in this post on Kentucky’s geological history but it certainly plays a role in many of the great things to see at our State Parks. As for our people, my experience throughout life has been that Kentuckians are by and by a friendly people as are most Americans but you will almost have those bad apples that spoil the bushel, however the long term employees of our State Parks tend to be some of our finer individuals who find working at the parks to be rewarding beyond a simple paycheck.
I am not going to get to long winded (I know some of you are rolling your eyes at me saying that!) with this general opening overview because I want to get back to righting on a much more regular interval even as my life continues to be busy with a project I have been working on for several months that I will hopefully be able to reveal later in September. So stay tuned and for those that have been to our Kentucky State Parks drop me a line here as to your experiences.
Kentucky Colonel
Thomas P. Demond
KyWEGO®
It was certainly a surreal day at Churchill Downs today for the 146th running of the Kentucky Derby. The weather could not have been better and the track was certainly fast so maybe its appropriate that Authentic, ridden by John Velazquez at 8 to 1 odds won the race convincingly in a time of 2 minutes 0.61 seconds over Tiz The Law.
It marks trainer Bob Baffert’s 6th Derby win though the day wasn’t without incident for him with one of his other horses, Thousand Words scratched after he reared up and went over backward in the paddock stalled and hit his head which is an automatic scratch by track vets. Then after the race, while they were putting the Roses on Authentic he spun and knocked Bob Baffert to the ground, but it is 2020 what can you expect.
In discussing the State of the Horse I am speaking of two interconnected thoughts, the animals themselves as well as the the different groups of individuals that are involved with horses. In reality I guess, the State of the “Horse” is almost exclusively tied to how the people involved with horses are doing. I am going to speak to my knowledge of what I see in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, though in many ways what I see here would be relevant in a number of other states.
In Kentucky there really are two horse realms, that of the Thoroughbred industry and that of all other horse breeds lumped together. It is much easier to quantify the state of the Thoroughbred industry because there is a lot of data collected about it. One of the first pieces of data most people talk about is the number of foals born, in 2015 that was a little over 22,000 which was a 1.9% increase over 2014. It’s interesting to note though that in 2006 that number was a bit over 35,000 and I do remember years with numbers higher then that, so that tell you how much the “Great Recession” impacted what really is one of the most insulted horse industries anywhere when you consider where the money comes from that drives that industry. Sales were also up and overall growth in the industry was also up by a couple of percentage points. Interestingly enough I think you could watch the Thoroughbred industry and know how the overall economy is performing, provided you treat it as a lagging indicator as opposed to leading. So if the the Thoroughbred numbers are getting better you can probably assume that the underlining economy is getting better or has at least stabilized in a way that allows for growth. The Thoroughbred horses themselves are probably doing better then in years past because the number of foals being born each year is lower, thus fewer horses for the industry to have to support and the efforts to support Thoroughbreds after their retirement from racing has also produced meaningful impacts on the well being of those horses.
In talking of the other equine realm, this encompasses every other breed and would also include those off the track Thoroughbreds (OTTB) that have found themselves with a new career. Actually I want to clarify, I am going to exclude one breed from this report because I believe it falls in between the two realms I am focusing on, that is the Standardbred industry, which in some years you could lump with the Thoroughbred industry in how its probably doing and in other years not so much so. I think the simplest way to define the two realms is that you can really think of the Thoroughbred industry as an industry, where as the other horse realm is less of an industry and more of an individual endeavor. I will probably get a few nasty emails saying that is an over simplification but for discussing the State of the Horse I think its the way most people think of these two realms.
Now let me try to define and clarify this second realm, which for the most part we can consider the pleasure horse realm. Now in truth there is an industry that exists because of the pleasure horse, but this industry is more generalized and many parts of it provide for the horse as a secondary aspect of the business not the primary. Think of the local feed store, selling feed and supplies to the people for their pleasure horses is significant but by far isn’t the only revenue generator that keeps the store profitable. A prime example of how the pleasure horse realm is doing is to look at your local TSC store, if you think back more then 1o years to how the store was laid out relative to what they carried for horses and you go in there today and tell me you don’t see a difference. Now I use TSC as an example to clarify the two realms because most Thoroughbred trainers are not using their local TSC store for supplies, they have a pretty defined supply chain of specialized providers but this is because the Thoroughbred industry is large and organized and benefits from that economy of scale. So in Kentucky I consider the pleasure horse realm to be all those people involved with horses outside of the Thoroughbred racing industry, again some are going to take issue with that but in discussing the State of the Horse that is the construct I am going to use.
So here is the point at which I get to discussing my views on the State of the Horse for 2016, which is really to say what it was at the end of 2015 and what the trend going into 2016 looks like. Back to my example of TSC, here is a business that most horse people I would venture to say know in one capacity or another, you may not buy your feed there, but you have probably purchased something horse related there. The change that I have seen there to me is indicative of a business tweaking their retail layout to better meet the needs of those patronizing their stores. That is to say that in the last 10 years they have seen their revenue from horse related items decrease, interestingly enough while they have seen the interest in chickens increase. Obviously a part of that has been driven by the urbanization of America as a whole which we also see in Kentucky but a bigger part has been the downturn in the rural middle class which has significantly impacted the pleasure horse realm. The actual increase is chickens seems to be much more related to urbanites wanting to say they are raising some of their own food, to clarify, eggs because they don’t want to kill their own food but they can produce eggs and its cool because they can relate it to the same product that they would go to super market to buy. I digress some in talking chickens but the point being is that the growth in interest in chickens vs. the decline in horses are two separate events that make my point about the nature of the pleasure horse industry. TSC is a business that supports the pleasure horse industry, but not exclusively and as markets change they change their business models to survive. Now this in some ways is a good thing because a lot of the businesses and professions that support the pleasure horse industry are not going to go out of business because of a down cycle in that realm, so that as the pleasure horse realm grows again the necessary support businesses grow with it. The short of it though is that the pleasure horse realm has seen a significant contraction since the “Great Recession” and that contraction continues. One of the structural changes that I have seen over the last 10 years has been a significant increase in other forms of back yard/off road entertainment. In the past 10 years we have seen an increase almost explosive in the numbers and variety of off road vehicles. Where ATV’s used to be tied to a business or farm need first and those people then might use them on the weekend for a little fun. Now ATV’s have become the new status symbols with ATV parks springing up around the state and I see convoys of trailers hauling them on the weekends only to wonder how many horse trailers have been traded in for flatbed trailers.
One of the real negative impacts the “Great Recession” has had is truly on the State of the Horse in regards to the horses themselves. We all like to joke about free horses, and I tell my non-horse friends if you want a free horse I can get you one, but I am the first to follow that up with the fact that I can get you a free horse, but that horse ownership is not free, actually as we all know it can be down right expensive. The problem is there was an explosion of horses back in the early 2000’s both from professional and back yard breeders and when the economy collapsed these horses very quickly became expenses their owners couldn’t afford. So in 2016 I believe we are still right in the middle of this crisis in that a lot of those horses are turning up in all the wrong places and are suffering fates that weigh or should weigh on all of us as horse people. My expectation is that it will take another 10 years for that issue to resolve itself through the normal process of life and death and not because we come together to solve it. Ultimately I wish the horse world as a whole had put together a framework for dealing with this reality, that it would be better for owners to have the option to humanely euthanize their horse(s) when they can no longer effectively care for them or be certain of what would happen to them if they were sold without having several organization that shall remain unnamed vilify them for trying to make the best choice for the horse in an extremely tough situation. Now I could write a whole article on my ideas on that and probably should but I am trying to stay on point with this article so I will limit my digressions.
In summing up what I consider to be the State of the Horse in 2015 by making some clear points based on my awareness.
The State of the Thoroughbred industry is largely stable with modest growth, though there are some notable head winds in the future that may impact that growth though I think the industry remains largely insulated from any structural changes.
The State of the Pleasure Horse Realm in Kentucky I believe has stabilized though there are structural changes that have occurred that will likely limit any kind of significant growth and certainly I would not expect us to get back to the numbers we saw in the late 90’s early 2000’s. In honesty some of the growth we saw back in the 90’s and early 2000’s wasn’t based on sustainable math and obviously I am not just meaning in regards to pleasure horse realm. I think for those horse breeds that are forward looking there is potential to continue to grow because horses will continue to have a connection to humans that is hard to explain but no less real.
The State of the Horse in regards to the animal itself still pains me, and I will always continue to promote responsibility in regards to the welfare of horses because they deserve nothing less than our best efforts to provide for them in a human and ethical way and to show our appreciation for the beauty and magic they bring to our lives.
Kentucky Colonel
Thomas P. Demond
KyWEGO®
This time of the year is Great in Kentucky for so many reasons, the weather is warm, though usually not too hot just yet. The Days are long as its not truly dark until 10, which makes for a Great Evening at a horse show, which are also very numerous this time of the year. So this past weekend my family and some friends of ours loaded up 3 of our horses, my OTTB “Mont(e)y”, their Saddlebred “Kiss This” and Walking Horse “Pepper” for a fun all be it, very long evening at the Just Horsin’ Around horse show in Brodhead, Kentucky. This was actually our second horse show in a week and certainly helped to lessen my disappointment over us not winning the 2018 World Equestrian Games.
We rolled into the show grounds just before 5 PM, the show wasn’t slated to start until 5:30 and we knew it might not get started right at 5:30 because these kind of shows are more about an enjoyable atmosphere then following some specific schedule, it was a Saturday night after all and anybody there wanted to be there and had no where else they wanted to be. I tacked up Monte as soon as we got there and headed into the ring the warm him up and see what he thought of all the horses and people. Speaking of horses and people, I don’t know that I have been to a horse show that was as packed as this one which of course makes me happy, because it means there is still a large population of people who enjoy horses and know just how important they are to the Commonwealth.
I entered Monte in one class, Western Pleasure just to give him that experience and spent the rest of the evening just riding around the fair grounds to see how he would react to all the people and horses. I did un-tack him and give him a long rest at one point until he got bored with that and then I tacked him up again and off we went. By this time it was after dark which can always present new experiences. Monte wasn’t phased by anything, I was so impressed with how he behaved with all the different scenarios we encountered. We spent a long time standing at the entrance to the ring watching a number of classes with numerous other people on horse back, certainly an enjoyable way to watch a horse show. He stood quietly taking it all in, much like he did everything else that night. By the time we left it was 1 AM and of the 8 hours we had been there I probably spent half that time on horseback which is where I wish I could spend more time. The time I spend at horse shows is always quality time that always proves the point of how much horses are a part of Kentucky and how Kentucky wouldn’t be the same without them.
Kentucky Colonel
Thomas P. Demond
KyWEGO®икони
I am not sure there is a bigger week in Kentucky that defines us as the Horse Capitol of the World like the 10 days from the start of Rolex through Saturday’s Kentucky Derby this year. There are a number of interesting factoids in regards to these two events. The Rolex Three-Day Event takes 4 days from Start to Finish, the Kentucky Derby is decided in 2 minutes plus or minus a few seconds. Both events are consider a leg of the Triple Crown in their respective sports. A number of successful Rolex horses are Thoroughbreds that started out as race horses and transitioned to Eventing. Generally Jockeys are short and only weighing about 100 pounds, Eventers tend to run the gambit on body size, William Fox-Pitt who won this year’s Rolex is something like 6′ 5″. The Rolex is in Lexington, The Derby in Louisville, two cities defined by Horses and Basketball both with a taste for Bourbon. Both events draw big crowds with significant economic impact both locally and on a State basis. The Derby does beat the Rolex in the area of TV coverage, 4 days of Rolex are turned into 1 hour of TV a week after the fact, where as the 2 minutes of the Derby equals many hours of live coverage across several channels. The obvious difference is that you can’t bet on the Rolex, well technically I guess you could, but who would want to, and if you do, you probably need to seek help. Another thing they have in common is that men and women compete equally and women are certainly a force to be reckoned with in the horse world, maybe more so there then anywhere else in business. I am sure that last sentence will draw some comments and I don’t have any scientific studies to back that up but feel pretty good about the validity of that statement. All of this is to make the point that we are The Horse Capitol of the World and that is a pretty cool thing, especially this time of the year.
Kentucky Colonel
Thomas P. Demond
KyWEGO
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I am recently back from my third(3rd) trip to South Africa in the past year having spent a total of nearly 6 weeks there and I have learned quite a bit. Most of what drove the South African Economy of the past was mineral(Gold, Diamonds, Rare Earth Minerals, etc…) wealth. As that has begun to decline South Africa’s other major industry, tourism has come into its own.
I am not going to beat around the bush, the thing that South African Tourism does well, is to sell South Africa as a Destination and a one of a kind experience, somewhere you go and spend a week or two. This is something that I don’t feel Kentucky does and I am sure I will get many people who will disagree with me on that, but at the very least I will get most of those people to agree we do not do it to the degree we could and should.
Now to be fair, South Africa has some natural advantages that Kentucky does not but Kentucky has a beauty that I would put up against any place in the World and its own unique character that makes it a Great Tourism Destination. The key with Destination Tourism is that you really are trying to sell to a far off audience, like South African’s, Europeans or just about anybody else on the planet.
I feel there are 4 keys to developing Kentucky as a Great Destination.
While in South Africa we actually did a day trip up to Botswana just to have that experience and to check out the new Bush Babies Lodge on the Limpopo River that separates South Africa from Botswana. And on our way back to the States, we came via Europe and changed flights in Paris, France on New Year’s Eve just to get in another destination. Now to be fair, we were only on the ground 5 hours so didn’t have time to leave the airport, but still I have the experience of saying I was in Paris for New Year’s Eve 2013.
My point being, that is why everyone wants to travel to far off lands and sometimes even the State next door, is for the experience and I have come to the conclusion that there are 7 billion people on the planet that all want to come to Kentucky they just don’t know it yet. I realize most of those 7 billion people don’t have that luxury of being able to travel that far but there are a lot of people who can and Kentucky needs to be on their list of Destinations they want to visit in their Life times.
Kentucky Colonel
Thomas Demond
KyWEGO
The Horse Park is also a significant economic contributor to the Commonwealth, with an estimated economic impact of approximately $180 million each year.
Rolex Kentucky (photo by www.PixBySteve.com.)
“The Kentucky Horse Park is the only place in our state—and one of the few places in the world—where visitors can see world-class equestrian competitions on a regular basis,” said Beshear. “We are not only the Horse Capital of the World, but Kentucky is also one of the premier homes for high-level equestrian sports. I encourage Kentuckians and visitors to attend one of the many top-rated shows held at the Kentucky Horse Park and witness elite competition firsthand.”
More than 115 athletes who participated in equestrian events in the 2012 Olympics have competed at the Kentucky Horse Park. Seventeen of those athletes earned a medal in the London Olympics.
Athletes frequently travel from Australia, France, Great Britain and many other countries to the Lexington facility to contend for top honors in equestrian sports such as dressage, jumping and eventing.
The Horse Park also hosted the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, which marked the first time the elite competition was held outside of Europe. That event placed Kentucky in the international spotlight and generated more than $200 million in economic impact, and also built on the park’s international reputation as a signature event site. The new facilities added to the Horse Park for WEG continue to attract competitors and tourists to Kentucky from across the country and around the world.
“We appreciate the continued support from the governor and first lady. We are exceedingly proud of our facility and the competitions that bring in visitors and athletes from around the globe,” said John Nicholson, executive director of the Kentucky Horse Park. “The Kentucky Horse Park is clearly one of the leading equestrian competition facilities not just in North America, but anywhere in the world. We expect the tremendous growth of the sport horse industry in Kentucky will accelerate in the years ahead.”
The Kentucky Horse Park is a 1,200 acre competition facility and tourist attraction recognized as the epicenter of equestrian life, sports and business. Most notably, the park annually hosts the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event. The event is ranked at four stars, which is the highest level in international competition.
The Horse Park hosts a number of other award-winning shows as well. The Alltech National Horse Show won the National Show Hunter Hall of Fame’s Show of the year. They were also named the top U.S. show by the North American Riders Group. North American Junior and Young Rider Championships and the two weeks of Kentucky Spring Hunter Jumper were named among the top 25 events in North America.
This year, the facility will host 21 grand prix jumper classes as well as seven national or international hunter derbies, with more than $1 million offered in prize money.
The Park will host three upper-level dressage events in 2013, including the U.S. Dressage Finals.
For more information on the Kentucky Horse Park and its world-class events, please visit kyhorsepark.com.
From Ky. Horse Park
| Commonwealth of Kentucky Office of the Governor FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Letter to Sec. LaHood Affirms Kentucky’s Commitment to Program FRANKFORT, Ky. (Aug. 9, 2012) – Gov. Steve Beshear today announced his support for the federal Recreational Trails Program (RTP) by signing a letter to U.S. Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood reaffirming Kentucky’s commitment to utilize RTP funds. “I am extremely pleased that the Recreational Trails Program has been reauthorized for funding,” said Gov. Beshear. “Kentucky is dedicated to effectively and efficiently using this program’s resources in an effort to enhance tourism, increase economic development and promote healthy, active lifestyles in our rural and urban communities.” The RTP provides funding to states to develop and maintain recreational trails and trail-related facilities for both non-motorized and motorized recreational trail uses. Last month, Congress and President Obama reauthorized RTP funding with the passage and signing of the Federal Public Transportation Act of 2012. As part of the legislation, $85 million in annual funding is dedicated to states for the RTP. However, the legislation also contains a provision that allows state governors to opt out of the program funding. With this letter of support, Gov. Beshear officially states that Kentucky recognizes the importance of the RTP and opposes any efforts to opt out of the program. “Recreational trails not only provide an alternative form of transportation, they also spur economic development, increase property values and aid in land conservation,” said Gov. Beshear. “Trail funding has been a valuable resource to enhancing the quality of Kentucky communities and I encourage other states to take advantage of this funding tool.” The RTP is funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration. Kentucky’s RTP grants are administered by DLG and require that applicants match the amount of funds requested. The grants may be used to provide assistance for acquisition of easements; development and/or maintenance of recreational trails; and trailhead facilities for both motorized and non-motorized use. In 2011, Kentucky awarded $1.8 million in RTP grants to 38 applicants in communities across the Commonwealth to help fund hiking, cycling, horseback riding and other trails. For more info on Kentucky recreational trails and other adventure tourism efforts in the state, please visit http://www.kentuckytourism.com/outdoor_adventure/great_outdoors.aspx. Follow Governor Beshear on Twitter @Govstevebeshear, read the Governor’s personal notes on his blog at http://governor.ky.gov/blog, and view his video commentaries at http://www.youtube.com/governorbeshear. |
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The Alltech National Horse Show started today at the Kentucky Horse Park. This is the 128th edition of the National Horse Show and it is a Great Honor that this show has come to our Commonwealth. I remember growing up as a kid hearing about riding at Madison Square Gardens as one of those ultimate accomplishments in the competitive horse world. I suspect if we get the honor of hosting this show for another 25 years people will speak of the Lexington in the same way they used to speak of the Garden’s. I have put up a seperate page for the Alltech National Horse so that I can embed the video streams and post other information specific to the show in an easy to access location.
Kentucky Colonel
Thomas Demond
KyWEGO®
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