COVID-19 Strikes a Blow to the Horse Show Industry
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By Delores Kuhlwein
There’s a line in an old Alabama song that says, “You can’t keep a good man down.” If there was ever a time to apply it to the horse industry, it’s right now.
It’s no secret that the horse show world has taken a big blow since the Coronavirus reared its ugly head, and the impact is still reverberating. We never could have guessed that the carefree lives we took for granted would change so drastically overnight.
Some friends and colleagues have had to make minor changes, while others have experienced repercussions like lost jobs, missed income, and dreams put on pause, but woven within those backstories exists an incredible tenacity.
Though our industry has been rocked to the core, it’s slowly repairing itself. The shining spirit of horsemen is prevailing and won’t be kept down. It’s proof that when we get bucked off, we always get back in the saddle again.
Halt Your Horses, Please
When quarantine and social distancing became buzzwords in early 2020, the flurry of travel and energetic momentum of the horse world came to a screeching halt. Vendors and photographers no longer packed up equipment and drove their goods down the highway; exhibitors stopped getting on planes; and trainers ceased loading horses onto trailers.
Debbie Trout of Don Trout Photography from Weatherford, Texas, says they were in the middle of shooting the Houston Stock Show when it was shut down. “This show is three-and-a-half weeks long, and we hadn’t even gotten to the busiest part of the show,” she explains.
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