URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT
The Pennsylvania Palomino Exhibitors Association
regretfully announces that our 2002 Fall Futurity Festival of
Horse Shows, scheduled to take place on September 28 & 29
at the Greene County Fairgrounds in Waynesburg PA, has been cancelled.
This show was previously scheduled to be
held in Butler PA, and was moved to Waynesburg after PPEA was
forced to postpone our April show in Butler due to extreme weather
conditions. Our club was drawn to the Waynesburg location because
there was an indoor arena there which has previously been very
successfully used for horse shows, including many large AQHA
show circuits held there through the late 1990's by the Tri-State
Quarter Horse Association and the Pennsylvania Quarter Horse
Association's youth organization. A number of PPEA members and
officers had shown at Waynesburg many times in the past and found
it to be a very fine and enjoyable place to exhibit horses. PPEA
booked our September Show for the indoor arena at Waynesburg
back in May with the then-manager of the Greene County Fairgrounds.
Arrangements were made with local motels for lodging, etc.
On September 9, the PPEA Show Manager and
the club Secretary traveled to Waynesburg to begin final preparations
for the show. They were shocked to learn that the manager who
had negotiated the contract was no longer an employee at the
Greene County Fairgrounds, and that conditions in the indoor
arena were not at all what our officers had been led to believe
at the time we booked the show. The entire fence or "pen"
was removed from the indoor and stacked against one wall, and
many huge electrical cables were dangling about six feet from
the ground in the arena. The cushioning footing material had
been completely removed from the arena floor; only the hard clay
base remained. Obviously, conditions were not up to PPEA's standards
for a safe and enjoyable show at this time.
The PPEA Show Committee has spent the past
several days trying to consider every possible option to make
this work. Due to the massive amount of preparation that would
be needed to make the Waynesburg indoor arena ready in time,
we have come to the conclusion that there is no alternative but
to cancel our Fall Horse Show for 2002.
PPEA deeply regrets that this action had
to be taken. We apologize to all those who have already booked
stalls and to those who were planning to show with us, and to
the four PHBA judges and our open show judge who were standing
ready to officiate. We very much appreciate everyone's kind understanding
in these extremely unusual and unfortunate circumstances. PPEA
is also grateful to all those who participated in our very enjoyable
Firecracker Special Horse Show Circuit
held at the Bedford County Fairgrounds in Bedford PA the weekend
of July 6 and 7. We invite everyone to join us in 2003 for our
horse show season, and we look forward to seeing you then.
Sincerely,
Merle Smith Kuznik
PPEA Show Manager
