Can One Town Handle an International Horse Show and a Political Convention? You Bet.

Speaking only from the perspective of the Chagrin Hunter Jumper Classic, putting on a million dollar event that ends the day before the Republican National Convention begins gave us volunteers pause. But only for about a second. We never gave a thought to cancelling the show–after all, if Mother Nature can\’t shut us down the politicians don\’t stand a chance. The biggest question was whether we\’d shift some dates of our big classes during the show–and then we decided naaaaa. You see, Ohio has always been an important political state. A study by the University of Virginia shows that since 1896, 93% of the candidates who have won Ohio have won the presidency. But it also is an important state for the equestrian industry, hosting the first grand prix in North America (in Cleveland, of course), and is the birthplace of Gene Mische, creator of the Winter Equestrian Festival and a member of the committee who brought the first FEI World Cup Jumping to the U.S. Just to name a few of his accomplishments. So there was just no way we\’d let down riders from the 28 states who joined us in 2015 for the 50th anniversary show! The first thing an enterprising board member did last August was to snap up over 150 hotel rooms. Reservations are held for exhibitors through May 15 at hotels listed in the prize list. Codes are given for discounts too.