Galway Downs officials and local politicians expressed disappointment Friday at the news that the Temecula venue is no longer being considered to host equestrian sports for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Late on April 9, the day of an International Olympic Committee meeting in which Olympic officials gave a noncommittal answer about Galway becoming an Olympic host, the Los Angeles Olympics Organizing Committee informed Galway Downs, City of Temecula and Riverside County officials that another venue has been selected, the local officials acknowledged in a late Friday statement.

“We are extremely surprised that we were suddenly removed from consideration. We don’t understand how, based on the March 28 City Council’s vote of approval, that this could happen,” Galway Downs owner Ken Smith said in the statement. “When we started this process more than four years ago, we understood the equestrian venue selection for LA28 would be a highly competitive, evolving process. Being selected as the proposed equestrian venue put Galway Downs and Temecula Valley on the world stage. We’re very proud of that, and we’re just getting started. Galway Downs will continue to host elite national and international competitions as well as additional sporting events.”

In late March, the Los Angeles City Council voted to approve Galway Downs as the venue, and it was expected that the International Olympic Committee would ratify that decision at its April 9 meeting.

No official announcement has come from the IOC or the city of LA yet regarding the new venue selected, and the LA28 committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

When the LA28 committee first proposed Galway Downs as the Olympic equestrian venue in June 2024 as part of a proposal to change several venues from the city’s original 2017 bid to meet new sustainability requirements set by the IOC, it called Galway Downs “[t]he only existing venue that can accommodate the requirements of Equestrian, while also reducing the cost and complexity of delivery.”

The same 2024 proposal said the committee had looked at “many possible venues,” including Hansen’s Dam in Los Angeles, but ruled them out in favor of Galway Downs.

While the LA City Council unanimously voted to approve the venue change on March 28, signs that the Olympic bid was in trouble emerged ahead of the IOC’s meeting this week, when local and state legislators penned a letter to IOC President Thomas Bach and LA28 Casey Wasserman encouraging them to keep Galway Downs as an Olympic venue.

At the end of that IOC meeting, when asked directly whether the committee had ratified Galway as an Olympic venue, Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi did not answer directly and instead said the LA28 committee would make any official announcement.

“Today the executive board has validated the master plan in broad terms, and that’s a really practical and very helpful step forward,” he said. “As for the announcement, including each and every detail, this will be the responsibility of LA. What I can tell you is that the key principles that were followed for the establishment of the master plan were to use and maximize the existing venues, no new permanent infrastructures, maximize also the opportunities within the city of LA, and also regroup the venues to avoid stand-alone [venues]. Every time you have stand alone, you are complexifying the operation. 

“So all in all, these principles were used and now the master plan has been adopted,” he continued. “For the details, let’s wait until LA will make the announcement.”

While that announcement has yet to come, on Friday, Temecula Mayor Brenden Kalfus expressed his disappointment over the rejection of Galway Downs as the Olympic venue.

“Galway Downs has showcased its equestrian center in Temecula Valley as the superior venue capable of hosting all Olympic equestrian games,” Kalfus wrote in an email to the Chronicle. “While the city is disheartened to learn of this abrupt change, particularly in light of LA28’s venue approval granted by the Los Angeles City Council just two weeks ago, we remain confident that Galway Downs will continue its legacy and mission uninterrupted as a vibrant, world-class Olympic-caliber equestrian presence in Temecula Valley.”

Riverside County Third District Supervisor Chuck Washington looked at the positives that had come out of the Olympic bid process.

“This process has led to international recognition of something we’ve known for a long time—that the beautiful Temecula Valley Wine Country offers world-class venues and hospitality,” he said in the statement released Friday. “We look forward to the many top-tier events coming to our region in the future.”