Ringside with HITS’ Tom Struzzieri

By Paula Parisi May 14, 2011

Tom Struzzieri founded Horse Shows in the Sun (HITS) in 1982 and had long since made his mark on the hunter-jumper world when he decided to up the ante by creating the richest grand prix in the U.S., launching the Pfizer $1 Million in 2010. Not content with that, he went on to gift the hunter world with the equally prestigious Diamond Mills $500,000 3’3″ Hunter Prix Final, which debuts this year. Both events will have a healthy number of West Coast competitors when they take place the weekend of Sept. 10 at HITS-on-the-Hudson in Saugerties, New York. Many of them—including Rich Fellers, Lucy Davis, John French and Nick Haness—qualified for the 40-some slots allocated to each event at the winter HITS Desert Circuit in Thermal. Others, like Charlie Jayne, ventured west to up their chances. “I was so grateful to HITS and the sponsors for last year’s Pfizer Million that I wanted to come here and try to get a head start on qualifying for this year’s class,” Wellington, Florida-based Jayne said of his recent visit to Thermal. HITS president and CEO Struzzieri reflected back on the winter circuit and looked ahead to next year with The Equestrian News editor in chief Paula Parisi.

Paula Parisi: You made some changes on the Desert Circuit this winter, allocating the prize monies a bit differently. What was in 2010 a $300,000 Lamborghini Grand Prix of the Desert was $200,000, and the difference divided among some other classes.
Tom Struzzieri: We have a pretty good committee of exhibitors and trainers that gets together every month via telephone, and they give us their feedback. People say they’d like to see change there either with physical improvements or class scheduling or things of that nature. So that’s worked pretty well. Any horse show manager has to pay close attention to what the customers want.

Parisi: They seemed to respond, with a full house and a waiting list going for HITS DC V, and the high-performance riders really psyched to qualify for the Pfizer $1 Million and the Diamond Mills $500,000.
Struzzieri: I think we’ve incentivized them pretty well. If that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes, right? But it’s nice to see them selecting our horse shows as a company. So the $1 Million class is attracting the jumpers, and the $500,000 class is attracting the hunters, but in Thermal, we also had a great turnout for everything in between. There were also price breaks this year and discounted stabling. I think those kinds of things were very appealing in this economy.

Parisi: Overall, the economic conditions being what they were, how do you feel the winter circuit went?
Struzzieri: Couldn’t have done any better, in my opinion. There are things we’ll do to improve, small tweaks and adjustments. But now that the dust has settled, so to speak, we feel pretty good about the product we offered and the response to it.

Parisi: And you went through the considerable cost to hold the World Cup qualifiers in the indoor tent.
Struzzieri: We had the four World Cup qualifiers, and we just received word from the USEF and FEI that we’ll offer four CSI-Ws again next year, and we’ll continue to do those in our tented indoor arena, even though the indoor mandate is no longer there for us.

Parisi: How did the indoor mandate come about?
Struzzieri: Years ago, it was mandated that all World Cup Qualifiers on the West Coast be held indoors. That mandate no longer exists, especially since the World Cup schedule has changed from June on, and many of the summer World Cup Qualifiers obviously are not held indoors. Despite that, though the feeling from the great majority—not everyone, but the great majority of our customers—is to continue with the indoor, because they feel like it gives them the best chance to be competitive should they qualify for the World Cup Finals. So we’ll keep doing that until the majority tells us that they prefer outdoors all the time. They’re not showing indoors at the World Cup Qualifiers in Florida either.

Parisi: Did they ever have indoor qualifiers on the East Coast?
Struzzieri: They used to have one of the World Cup Qualifiers in Tampa, which would have been the last one of the East Coast season. But Tampa didn’t happen this year.

Parisi: Was it just the West Coast that was required to hold their World Cup Qualifiers indoors, then?
Struzzieri: Yeah. The West Coast Riders group got together and decided that was something that would benefit them, and we show managers went along with it. It was like one of those offers we couldn’t refuse [laughs].

Parisi: Your indoor seems a lot different than the ring at the Oaks that they call an indoor, which is similar to the venue in Del Mar—an open-air venue with a roof.
Struzzieri: I do believe that the Equidome in Burbank and the covered ring at the Oaks give them the experience they’re trying to get. Most of it is that the small ring creates so many different challenges. It’s not so much that the ring has to be covered as much as it has to be a small ring where the turns are tight and it’s just jump after jump, without a real chance to catch your breath. I don’t think we experience that very much when we jump in our big fields. So that’s the effect they’re trying to get, and I think our indoor, the Equidome at LAEC and the Oaks accomplish that.

Parisi: It seemed like it was a very successful circuit for you. The people I talked to were very happy, which is somewhat unusual! People are typically so willing to complain.
Struzzieri: I think you hit it on the head. People left feeling good about the product, and the staff felt the same way. I hope we’ll carry that momentum into next year.

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