Although it was listed in the U.S. Eventing Association’s omnibus, The Event At Rebecca Farm in Kalispell, Mont., will not host a CCI*** in 2014.
“We had never officially decided to run it in the first place,” said organizer Sarah Broussard. “When I apply to the FEI, I check all the boxes, because it’s much easier to be approved and not run it than to not ask and try to get it approved later. I pretty much always check everything [on the form] because we never really know how it’s going to run, and you have to do it so far ahead with the FEI.”
Because of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games (France) this year, Broussard is eyeing a CCI*** for 2015.
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“Talking with David [O’Connor, U.S. eventing chef d’equipe] and a few other people, we decided to hold off until next year. I think this year the World Equestrian Games kind of changes the calendar a bit and upon reinspection of the idea, the powers that be decided this year’s not the year.”
Broussard explained that she’s wanted to host a CCI*** division at Rebecca Farm for several years, ticking the box on the FEI form for the 2013 event as well, but the timing wasn’t always right. The event, scheduled for July 23-27, currently hosts novice through advanced, a training three-day, Young Event Horse and Future Event Horse classes, a CCI*, CCI** and CIC***.
“This has been something that I’ve [been pushing for],” she said. “When I first started thinking we should run a three-star, I didn’t really grasp the entirety of it. Not so much what’s involved in running it—that we can do—but grasping the [idea] that you really want to make it worthwhile. We just want to make sure there’s enough competitors to make it a competitive division. To run a three-star with eight people in it isn’t really fair to the competitors, because even though they may do very well in the one that we offer here, they go somewhere where’s there’s 30, 40, 50 people in it, and it’s a whole different ball game. It’s more than just having a division of a CCI***. We’re hoping to have a true-to-life division.”
