Letter from your President: 4/9/08

Howdy All,

I hope spring finally gets sprung and we all get to horse around in something besides mud. The weather has not only been uncooperative for working with our horses, it has been a real damper for the shows as well. Surprisingly we had a decent turnout for our March 29th show despite the cold, rain, wind and lightening that day. I wish to take this moment to personally thank all the exhibitors that braved the nasty weather to come to the show!

We learn something with each and every show, and of course try to improve things for the next one. Some of the changes you will notice now will be an official policy for start time delays in widespread hazardous weather. We never wish for anyone to feel pressured trying to make it through awful conditions to get to our shows. We are fully aware of the added responsibility you have hauling animals under such circumstances. Unlike breed shows where many of the exhibitors are from other states, and arriving the day or evening before a show, we understand that our attendees are showing the “day of” and will likely be caught in unsafe weather should that be the case. So…relax, take it slow, be safe, and expect the show to usually start about an hour late. Don’t worry about the show lasting longer than you expected as nasty weather has a negative effect on turn out numbers, and that always significantly shortens a show.

You will also notice some classes with new names. We have changed “Ranch/Trail riding classes to “Ranch Riding” in an effort to eliminate the confusion the word “trail” was causing with these classes. Some exhibitors thought it meant all Ranch classes had obstacles involved. They do not. Ranch riding w-t is a walk/trot rail class, and Ranch w-t-c is a walk-trot-canter rail class, with Ranch Trail being the only actual obstacle class for the Ranch horse division. We have changed “Ranch horsemanship” to “Ranch Reining” to better describe the event, and to keep more consistent with AQHA and NFQHA Ranch horse class descriptions.

We have dropped a few of the walk-trot classes that we were not shown in, and we noticed were in disproportionate numbers to other classes. In their place we have added a “trainer pleasure” where training equipment is allowed, and an “in hand trail” obstacle course for exhibitors that have young horses they are not yet riding but are working on exposing them to the show world, and all those saber toothed monsters they must brave to become dependable mounts. We hope you can take advantage of these new class additions.

While I’m on the subject of changes, the Arab/Half Arab classes have been re-named “Saddle Type” so as to also include Morgan horses, and three gaited Saddlebred horses. The Arabians and Half Arabians will still show in these classes as their Arab/Half Arab division. This is merely an effort on our part to be a bit less exclusive to similar types, but different breeds of horses. This model was adopted from the same format used by the Pinto Horse Association. I hope some of you that own some of these other breeds welcome the opportunity this provides.

I sincerely hope everyone enjoyed the nice high point awards we gave out March 29th. We have more of those unique awards for the next two shows in the making. Remember if you get tired of looking at it as an award, you can remove the insert and still use it as a nice custom picture frame.

I would like to remind you all that we have a clinic scheduled for Saturday, May 17th at Mr.Glen Reed's place in Bald Knob Arkansas. Glen is a very accomplished reining exhibitor, and has graciously invited us to come to his place for an educational clinic on beginning reining, and ranch reining maneuvers. May 17th is the Sat after our May horse show and we will be announcing the clinic information at the show. The public is invited so bring you riding buddies. You don’t have to be a member of NCAApHC to attend and/ or participate. Glen has both a covered pen as well as a riding track. With he himself being a retired teacher, I know we will be well taught and accommodated. Call (501) 556-5512 for more information on the clinic.

Appaloosa owners!

I would like to see more of you at our shows. While we are having all breed competitions in an effort to raise the bank balance enough to allow us to put on an all ApHC show in the future, our open show is ACAAP approved. You can earn merits with this program that are computed by ApHC, and the records are kept nationally. ApHC has all merit earners information available on their website. ApHC also offer special awardsl to winners enrolled with the ACAAP division. I know I plan to show my ACAAP enrolled Appaloosas at the May 10th NCAApHC all breed show.

Paint owners, we are also a PAC approved event with APHA.

Arabian owners, we also participate in your open show awards program.

That’s all for now, and I hope to see you at the next show! Until then…Happy Trails! Sincerely, Karen Garriott ( president elect, NCAApHC)

Letter From the President
January 2008

I hope you all had a great holiday season and are looking forward to the new year! I know we here at NCAApHC are excited about the upcoming year. We have lots of new things planned and exciting opportunity's for the 2008 season. We are expanding our show schedule as well as reaching out to other organizations to increase horse activities available in the state. We also are reaching out as an organization towards charitable programs to see what we can do as a club to enhance the lives of others through our horses and our horse activities.

Exciting for this year is our greatly anticipated meeting with the director of activities for the North Little Rock Veterans Home. They are excited about our offers to disabled veterans, and the expanded activities it will allow them. We had offered to provide them free carriage rides at Christmas time at the North Little Rock facility, but unfortunately due to their long approval process they were unable to take advantage of the offer. However...we are on the agenda for getting all this resolved for 2008, and hope to offer horse riding and driving free of charge to disabled veterans as well. I will keep you all updated as this process unfolds.

We are also excited with our plans to coordinate with the Arkansas Arabian Horse Club's shows. We are lucky to have Ron Reed as a member of our club and helping us with this. Our plans are to have our shows at 2 to 3 week intervals to their shows, thereby allowing our members to show at their shows and vice versa without conflict. We have members that belong to both clubs and this will expand everyone's showing opportunities. For those of us with horse show fever, this is great news!

We will be dropping the abridged ApHC approved section of our show due to lack of interest and replacing it hopefully with some of the more popular classes at AAHC. There has also been much talk about offering a disabled riders class or two to the show bill. We had a great response to the Ranch Horse classes so those will stay, as well as paybacks, and we are also very interested in adding some speed events as well.

Our Appaloosas will be acquiring ApHC Nationally recognized ACAAP merit awards at our shows, and we warmly welcome all other breeds with open show point programs to participate as well. Our show officials will graciously sign the forms for you at any of our events.

We hope to have a full scale ApHC show at some point as opposed to the abridged show. This most likely will be in conjunction with our NSBA events. For now we are concentrating on expanding our Open all breed shows in the hopes of generating the cash flow for more events. We are a club that works very, very, hard to be ALL inclusive. We hope to leave no one out of the wonderful horse experience!


Sincerely, Karen Garriott
(2008 President Elect NCAApHC)