By Carmen Porter, BCHA Board Member & Fun Show Committee Chair For many years, the Boulder County Fairgrounds offered public sessions from November through April, which was a wonderful but unfortunately underutilized opportunity for the equestrian community to bring their horses to the indoor arena to practice for the low cost of $5/horse. With the recently approved updated Boulder County Fairgrounds Policy Manual, all those public sessions have been cancelled. If you were one of the users who took advantage of this, it is a big loss, as there is no other indoor public arena opportunity for practice. Some of you may not have been aware that public sessions at the indoor arena existed and might have used them if you knew. Every year we try to remind the equestrian community about public sessions, but this year when we contacted the fairgrounds office to confirm the dates, we were informed that the public sessions have been cancelled. Traditionally, the public sessions consisted of Tuesday evening roping, Wednesday all day open riding, Thursday evening barrel racing (as well as a day in the exhibit building set up for dog agility course practice). The cancellation of all these public events was proposed in the presentation of the updated fairgrounds policy manual to Boulder County Parks & Open Space Advisory Committee at their meeting held on May 23. POSAC advises staff and the county commissioners on management of county Open Space properties, and the fairgrounds are one of those facilities. As such, POSAC has quite an influence on decisions
