Robert Kellerhouse Talks Turf

By Paula Parisi December 1, 2011

Robert Kellerhouse founded Galway Downs in 1998, when he relocated his Del Mar Eventing horse show business to the 240-acre complex in Temecula. Following the success of his second CCI 3* show, The Equestrian News editor in chief Paula Parisi asked him to share his perspective on the sport.

The Equestrian News: The rain that pelted the 2011 Galway Downs International Three-Day was unusual. How did that affect the show?
Robert Kellerhouse: Nobody in the upper level scratched at all. We had about five to seven that scratched out of the lower levels. Some of them didn’t even have stud holes in – they had never put stud holes in their  horse’s feet, because they never had to . That’s why we live in SoCal, right? It’s a beautiful place. We’re very lucky.

TEN: You had 18 classes at the show, for all levels of rider, up to FEI 3*…
Kellerhouse: We want to appeal to a broad range of riders. Only about 10% of people who do our sport in this country ride at the CCI 1* level. For the 2* it’s about 3-5%, and at 3* it’s only 1-2%. Those percentages are about the same for the world. In 2010, 15,000 people [globally] started in an FEI-level eventing competition. The CCI 3* course was 6,000 meters, so basically four miles, with 40 efforts, and they’re averaging 570 meters-per-minute, or about 23 miles per hour, so it’s quite a test.

TEN: It looked like you had a pretty good spectator crowd. How many showed up?
Kellerhouse: We had about 3,500 on cross-country day, Saturday. The rain kept a lot of people away. We’re pleased with the response. To me, our biggest supporters are our riders. They come out and they enter your show and that’s a very, very big deal. A lot of people make a real effort to get out here. We’re glad we can make it worth their while. But what puts the icing on the cake, and sort of bakes the cake and gives it extra flair and sparkle, are our sponsors and supporters who suffuse the events with their capital, their energy and their products. They’re what has allowed us to get to a higher level.

TEN: How Does Galway compare to, say, a European 4*?
Kellerhouse: At Badminton, there are probably 200,000 people attending for cross country, and you’ll find 20,000 people sitting around one jump. We had 35 vendors, they have about 500.

TEN: You also had a lot of support in terms of the volunteers…
Kellerhouse: You can’t hire people of the caliber of our volunteers. They’re awesome. I’m talking about PhDs, college grads, psychologists, doctors, people who travel hundreds of miles. The horse show wouldn’t function without them. We don’t pay them, but we try to spoil them with nice lunches. Jerry Lance, who is our volunteer director, is amazing.

TEN: Tell us a bit about the history…
Kellerhouse: I started running CCI 2* events in 1999, the year after we opened. Back then, there was no such thing as a CIC. CICs and horse trials get you qualified for CCIs. By the time we decided in 2009 that we would host a 3* here in 2010, we had been investigating literally for years. Now we’re the longest running CCI 2* in the US. Isn’t that crazy? Who would have thought an event in California would become the longest running CCI 2*?

TEN: Initially Galway Downs catered to the Southern California community. Did you always know you would grow into an international event?
Kellerhouse: My original goal was to produce a competition that serviced the local riders at a high standard.  In 2009, 26 horses traveled back east to compete in a CCI 3* or 4*. That seemed like an awful lot of trouble, expense and effort. That year, we made the decision to expand to include a CCI 3* for 2010. The decision was made based on the fact that we thought we’d get a substantial amount of entries, but whether that happens or not, you run the event to a certain standard, and we were prepared to do that. As it turned out, we had a good response – 20 horses competed. And this year the class number doubled to 40. What’s unique about a CCI is there are only a couple of times a year you’d want to run one, and only a couple of places you actually could. Temecula is one of those places. We have seven airports within an hour and a half.

TEN: Relocating your operation from Del Mar to Temecula in 1998 seems to have been a flashpoint for growth.
Kellerhouse: We are now on a 240-acre property with 500 stalls, 14 arenas and two racetracks. The property itself can handle huge events. That’s what it was originally built for in 1968. It had a major expansion in 1981, and the idea was for it to handle the same amount of activity as Santa Anita. There are many million people within a couple of hours around us. The community of Temecula can handle people coming in and staying in hotels, eating in restaurants. With the wineries and casino, it’s made to be an event town.

TEN: Which international riders did you host this  year?
Kellerhouse: Merel Blom from Holland, Ronald Zabala from Ecuador, Nina Ligon from Thailand, Kadi Eykamp from Australia. We had riders from Canada – Sandra Donnelly, Lisa Marie Ferguson. It worked in our favor that 2012 is an Olympic year, because even the countries that don’t qualify to have a team can qualify individual riders. We had the U.S. selectors out here watching the riders go, and others, too. There were 370 horses competing.

TEN: How did you get into this business?
Kellerhouse: I was raised in San Diego. My mom ran events in SoCal. She was a secretary for the Pio Pico Horse Trials in Jamul, which was an event run by the Santa Fe Hunt, in the ’70s and ’80s, and I was a little kid going to these events. As I got older I realized our sport needed to grow in the U.S., because I saw a lot of my talented friends having to leave the country to compete at a high level. I ran an eventing show out of Del Mar from ’95 to ’98, when the owner of the Galway property at the time reached out to us. So I naively dove in, with the help of Bert Wood, my course designer and the secretary of my shows in San Diego.

TEN: Why do you continue to support the classic format?
Kellerhouse: It’s a good training tool, for people and horses alike, and since our property suits itself to running a classic format we’re happy to offer it.  We had  two classes, Training and CCI 1*. It’s split among people who have ridden at the higher levels with their horses and people who haven’t. In all, we offered 18 classes, at all sorts of training destinations. For many of the people doing the Training Classic Format three-day, that will be the highest-level event they will do in their entire life. It’s great to come here and win, but the best compliment I can get is when people tell me they came and learned something about horsemanship and had a great time.

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