Important message from NWYRA President Grady Johnson
Jul 22, 2019
-- Posted by :
admin
Everyone,
As you , I am very disappointed and concerned about the ground we experienced at the track arena. We were the first ones in many years to have worked it up and tried to use it. It doesn't work for us. Our kids safety and the safety of our horses is not taken lightly, for me or anyone on the board. This is why I have been providing equipment/time for the past few years. I want it to be a fun, safe experience for everyone. With this being said, I am sorry. This morning I met with the fairgrounds and a few members of the rodeo committee, to discuss the situation. We will be working, this weekend, on prepping an area of the parking lot, south of the track, for our rodeo on August 2-4. We potholed this area, today, and found the dirt under the grass to be much like the dirt in the main arena. The reason for the shifty ground on the track- wood shavings had been added to it over the years. These organics, mixed with dirt, make the dirt loose and hard to keep wet enough to have support for our animals. The dirt in the parking lot, is dirt.
I personally, have been around rodeo, all of my life. I have seen a lot of arena conditions change, due to weather. There are times when you, as a parent, need to identify those conditions and make adjustments to, your game plan. We will try to give you the best conditions we can, with what we have.
Never the less, rest assured, we will have a much safer, small arena. For those of you who were not at Canby last year, our Saturday performance went until 11:30 pm. I am trying to speed this up and get our families back to their camps to enjoy the time out of the arena. I believe that the rodeo arena and competition are great experiences for our kids, but the relationships that they create out of it, mean more and may take them farther in life.
I hope you all can see that this board is trying to keep this association moving in the right direction and that they are making decisions to try and keep the rodeo way of life, alive and strong, for future generations to be able and experience.
