Back to School at Pegasus

By Paula Parisi February 1, 2011

There’s a new schooling show in town! Pegasus Equestrian Center in Agoura hosted a top-notch program on Dec. 11 that organizer Erin Rorabaugh said is the trigger for what she hopes will be four such shows this year. The idea, she explains, is to “run it like an A-rated horse show, but at a schooling show price.” Rorabaugh isn’t alone in thinking the Los Angeles area is in need of more affordable opportunities to school young horses—and young or beginning riders.

Prominent course designer Linda Allen has started the Benchmark Program, which is hosting shows at the El Sueño facility in Somis, with that same goal in mind. “It has become a dilemma for owners and trainers of younger horses in the U.S.—the absolute necessity of show ring mileage to develop winning, saleable horses, along with the growing cost of obtaining that mileage,” Allen says, noting that in Europe there is an abundance of quality one-day events for younger horses. Overseas, “any area with a concentration of breeders and trainers will have these events throughout the year; offering not just affordable experience in the ring for the horses but serving as valuable market places as well.”

“It’s nice to be able to have the greener horses show, because you don’t necessarily want to spend the money traveling them around,” says Rachel Croft, a trainer at Erin Duffy Show Stables, which is based at Pegasus. “When I was working in Europe, we’d have as many as three of these training shows a week. You basically pack up and live out of your lorry.”

Rorabaugh, a trainer who has for 18 years operated Fairview Farms, for hunters, jumpers and equitation, purchased the luxurious Pegasus facility three years ago. The sprawling complex has five rings, one of them a covered arena. “On Saturdays, when everyone is here, you don’t feel it at all, she notes, explaining that at some point she’d like to try to purchase show dates from the United States Equestrian Federation “and expand into a significant show facility.”

Such dates, she says, are hard to come by. Horse show producers who have owned them forever just hang onto them, whether they’re using them or not (the USEF has strict rules that limit the geographical proximity of its rated shows within a timeframe). These training shows are a good way to not only serve the community, but get some event production experience.

“It’s hard, because I’m traveling so much to horse shows. While planning this I was already gearing up for Thermal.” She says she’s pleased enough with the results to consider mounting as many as four such events next year. “We were testing the waters a bit with this, to see where it could go. We actually did two shows here last year—one for jumpers and one for dressage—but it wasn’t on this scale.”

She took the plunge, largely because other trainers were clamoring for such opportunities. “Far West Farms called and said, ‘When are you going to do one for 3.6 [meter] horses?’ The community really wants it, and the response has been great. Going forward, we’ll probably expand into the third arena and offer more classes.”

Rorabaugh priced her classes at $20 apiece. “That’s the big thing. People can do a whole division for $80, whereas at a big horse show you can barely cover one class for that. And if you wanted a warm-up round it was $15, and instead of doing it at the crack of dawn, like at most shows, we had them before each division, so people can just haul-in and stay for their division and leave instead of having to get out here at 6:30 in the morning. The idea was to make it convenient and affordable.”

For more information about Pegasus Equestrian Center, go to http://pegasusequestriancenter.net/.

 

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