Hello PHBA friends and family,
I sincerely hope that everyone has had a chance to rest, recoup, and recover from the 43rd Annual PHBA World Championship Horse Show in Springfield, Illinois! It was a GREAT SHOW! On behalf of the Amateur Executive Board of Director’s and its members, we would love to hear about your experience there and any suggestions or changes you recommend to make it run better. This show provides a great opportunity every year to connect, reconnect, visit and reminisce with old and new friends. This year, the show had some very large payouts and was up in numbers of horses and class exhibitors! This was also the case for the palomino bred classes and horses.
The Amateur Executive Board worked very diligently to provide different activities for everyone’s enjoyment. The Amateur Team Tournament returned with trophy buckles for the winning team, embroidered coolers – second-place team, stall bags – third-place team, and halters and Amateur hat’s – fourth place team (Thank you to Ferguson’s). The randomly placed teams were all very excited to receive their prizes. The Wed night Ice cream was a huge hit – Thank you to Eikenberry’s and Young’s! The NEW Amateur DOG Show on Wednesday after the street party was very well attended and had some very cool participants! There were 28 entries for halter dog! Thank you to Eikenberry’s & Beard’s for getting this set-up and getting everything coordinated, including the prizes and ribbons! The Amateur and Open Board joint fundraiser raffle for the 2020 Innovations Show Stall inflatable portable show stall was a big draw and helped house all the APA baskets and donated items. We did well on the baskets this year, which is good as this fundraiser goes directly to helping purchase your year-end amateur awards!
I am incredibly proud of the Board members that worked the booth and handed out awards this year! I had some personal challenges (Colic, Lyme, & Laminitis episode) with my reining mare Vegas that prevented me from being up at the booth for most of the show and doing some of the things I had planned and wanted to do. In my absence, the Board members all pulled together in true team fashion and covered everything! I will forever be grateful for the support and compassion that they showed me and Randy in our time of need. This also applies to several other palomino friends and family; you know who you are. We had to leave her in Champagne, IL when heading home on Sunday and I hope that is a feeling no one else has to ever experience. As of this writing she is now back home, has new comfortable glue-on “squishy” shoes and is slowly recovering. It did make for a very different World Show than I had envisioned. I guess my Year of the Horse change was to learn about feet, dealing with multiple stressors at a large World Show event & still focus enough to show, and how to navigate thru vetting from afar, all while trying to cover things as President.
We had a large number of new members and new attendees this year at World Show. I hope those new members felt connected, encouraged, supported, and excited to be part of our World Show and the Amateur association. Everyone’s opinion matters, is valued, and is needed to continue this association. If you show at an APA show, want to be in the Recreational Riding program because you don’t show or just simply enjoy trail riding with your horse, your membership and voice is valued! Please consider attending one of the late summer or fall/winter APA shows. We are all happy to help you in any way that we can.
The Amateur Board will again be selling raffle tickets to win a $1,000.00 certificate to the 2027 World Show for $25.00 each. There will be limit of 150 tickets sold, and the drawing will be held at the 2027 PHBA National Convention in March at the Saturday night banquet. Please contact any Amateur Board member to get your ticket today! We had great feedback from this last year and wanted to continue to give an amateur a great opportunity to enjoy more showing at the World Show.
Sincerely,
Alisa
Alisa Wold
2026-2027 Amateur President