ShareThisIt's been a rough ride for people in the horse business over the past two years.
The economic crash came at the same time that feed costs were doubling. Horse prices plummeted. Stables shut their doors. Attendance at equestrian competitions evaporated. And owners abandoned their horses, often leaving it to the stables where they were boarded to deal with the animals or, in some cases, turning them loose to fend for themselves.
Those involved in training, boarding and competition worry that the industry and equestrian sports may suffer from the fallout for years to come.
Gretchen Clark, 62, owns Showcase Stables in San Timoteo Canyon, south of Redlands, Calif. The property has several long rows of covered stables and two training rings. She has operated the business for 16 years and worked with other horse trainers before that.
"I've been in Redlands since 1980," Clark said. "I've never seen it this bad. It's desperate. People are giving horses away."
In a normal year, she said, she might broker the sale of 10 to 12 horses.
"Last year, I didn't sell one horse," she said.
But like a lot of boarding operations, she has had to deal with the unexpected acquisition of new stock. For example, a customer had agreed to board two unbroken horses with her and paid for the initial two months.
"When I went to bill them, they were gone," she said. "Just dropped the horses on me. Now I've got to get them trained to a level and hope somebody wants to buy one of them."
It seems almost every stable owner has a similar story of having customers abandoning their horses.
Several orange groves down the road from Clark is Kathi Duncan, 52, who manages Moonlight Farms with her husband, Leonard. The thoroughbred training and boarding business typically keeps between 40 and 60 horses. Last year, nearly half of those horses suddenly became theirs.
"We had one man who had 25 horses," Kathi Duncan said. "He said, 'Keep them, sell them, do what you want. I can't afford them.' We probably gave away 20 of them. We're just finding good homes for them. There's still a couple more we're trying to get rid of."
Experts say horses that once sold for $5,000 to $10,000 are going for a fraction of their previous value.
Many owners who can afford the upkeep have cut back on equestrian events, particularly competition. On top of the basic cost of horse ownership, competing in shows can drive up expenses for training, special equipment, travel, stabling, lodging and entry fees.
"I've heard some shows have been canceled because they didn't get enough entrants," Mark VanSickle, 57, owner of nearby Proud Horse Farms said.
In Norco, Danny Azevedo, 59, president of the Norco Horseman's Association, said owners in his area have seen the same economic pressures as everyone else -- increased costs, depressed horse prices and, in many cases, decreased family income. He helps operate a horse rescue and he's been busy, he said.
Still, attendance at local western horse events featuring such competitions as barrel racing and roping has been steady, Azevedo said.
"We've had good-sized crowds," he said. "I haven't seen really a big decline for us."
Other types of equestrian events have not been as fortunate.
Hanna Simpson, 14, of Rancho Cucamonga, has been riding for eight years. She recently competed in an event at Clark's San Timoteo Canyon stables, where she guided her horse over advanced jumping courses.
Hanna said she has noticed a decline in participants. At a national event in Burbank, which she has attended the past three years, rider numbers have dropped almost by half, she said.
At small events, riders can expect to spend $100 to $150 to compete in a half-dozen classes. That doesn't count the expense of hauling the horses or any training or other costs.
At large events, such as Horse Shows in the Sun in Thermal from January to March, it's another story.
Thousands of riders from all over the United States and Canada travel there to Horse Shows in the Sun. The event center is one of the largest in the country, and the high-powered hunter-jumper series draws elite riders and premium horses, some as expensive as the Lamborghini sports cars a Newport Beach dealer had trailered in for the show
Clark said riders attending weeklong events in Thermal can expect to spend $2,500 to $6,000 just on show expenses. That doesn't include lodging and food for the humans involved.
Numbers have been down there as well, participants said. Both riders and vendors said business had rebounded some from the previous year, when they said participation was as low as 350 riders some weeks, down from highs of 2,500 in years past.
Tony Hitchcock, 69, senior vice president of Horse Shows in the Sun, wouldn't provide specific figures but did say that business at large horse shows such as his was down 25 to 40 percent. But things looked better this year, he said.
"It's still a dim light, but there is light at the end of the tunnel," Hitchcock said.
(E-mail Mark Muckenfuss at mmuckenfuss(at)PE.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.
