| WCHA Letters
From The President December:
Hi Cutters,
I hope that all of you and your families are doing well. As
I write this, many of you are in Texas for the Futurity; I
hope that you are all having a great time. I just finished
hanging the Christmas lights on the house, Cindy is at work
decorating both, (yep, both) of the trees.
I would like to give some press to our members that ended
the year in the top 15 for the world, congratulations to
Cindy Stefka and Shawna Garcia in the 15 Amateur and Jaelyn
Sleeman in the 5,000 Novice NP. Congratulations also to Emma
Lanning and Lindee Curtis for finishing the year in the top
10 of the Youth Rookie of the Year standings. Great job
ladies!
Plans are being made for our year end meeting and awards
banquet on January 14th. Please send me your thoughts on
topics that you would like to see discussed at the meeting.
We will be appointing new committee members as well as
electing officers. If you have an interest in being either a
Board Member or officer please let me know. We are always
looking for members who would like to be involved in the
association. The General membership meeting will start at
2:00 followed by the banquet and awards presentations.
I look forward to seeing all of you in Moses Lake, until
then; have a great holiday season and a happy New Year. And
remember, “Go Ducks”.
Brad
October: Hi Cutters,
Our season is complete! We had a great final
week of cutting starting with our Fall Aged
Event and wrapping up with our final weekend
show of 2011. It has been quite a year, thanks
to all of you for your continued support. The
LAE participants had rave reviews for the ground
and facility, everyone that participated stated
they would be back. Congratulations to the
champions and finalists; please click on the
results tab for complete finals results. The
weekend show season also wrapped up, WCHA
produced another outstanding group of champions.
The results are posted on the website. I also
would like to thank the Aged Event committee for
their efforts at putting together a great show.
Thanks also to Equi-Cam Video and the Women of
WCHA for putting together a great social on
Wednesday evening, everyone had a blast.
The board met
during the LAE with two major discussion points,
next year’s schedule and added money for the
weekend shows. All shows will be held at Moses
Lake. Show dates are:
This show schedule was carefully worked out to
make sure we have no dates that conflict with
Cascade or Oregon. Hopefully this will make it
much easier for everyone to arrange their
schedule. We are also working on a day money
aged event in April to be held before the
weekend show. Watch the website for more
information.
The Board also
voted to increase the added money in all weekend
classes. The goal of this change is to draw more
cutters from the area to our weekend shows. This
will allow more cutters to take advantage of the
great facility that we have as well as improving
the payout.
Plans are currently being worked out for our
General Membership meeting and Awards Banquet. I
expect that this will take place sometime after
the Holiday’s. The date, time and place will be
posted to the website.
Brad
August:
Hi Cutters,
Thanks to all of you that attended our last show. I know
that attending 3 shows in 3 days was a difficult proposition
for many of you but I appreciate your attendance. When the
Board made the decision to expand the June and July shows,
the decision was the best that could be made at that time.
The feeling was that we wanted to catch up the show season
as much as possible; we found out that most of our members
prefer to cut on the weekend. We are continuing to improve
the facility at Moses Lake; the practice pen has been
completed and several members took advantage of it with good
reviews.
Looking forward, the next event is the Fall Limited Aged
Event and the finals show. The LAE will start Tuesday with
the finals on Friday evening. The weekend show will start on
Friday morning and continuing through Sunday. We are still
working on the plans for the weekend but the finals night
plans are in place. We are having a Calcutta auction for the
Pro-Am, Senior and Futurity finals. We are also having a
canned food drive with the proceeds going to the Moses Lake
Food Bank. We are asking that everyone that attends bring 2
cans of food to the finals. We are working with the local
newspapers to get the news of this event out to the
community.
Good luck to all of the Washington cutters that are starting
their second season, the Limited Aged Event season. I know
that Washington cutters will be well represented at these
events, results from past years show that WCHA cutters
travel well. Keep your eyes on the NCHA website for links to
these events.
See you in September,
Brad
May:
Hi Cutters,
As all of you are aware, the last month has been
difficult. Western Nationals started on a high note with
Josh taking first and third in the 3,000 Novice,
followed by numerous WCHA finalists. The event turned
sad with the passing of Kenny Paul, John Paul's brother.
Please keep John's family in your thoughts and prayers.
Things continued to move in the wrong direction with the
discovery that horses that had attended the show had
been exposed to EHV-1. This caused numerous cancelations
of shows including our May show and NCHA Days. We will
continue to monitor the situation and make our decisions
to start up the show season when we feel it is safe to
do so. The board has had several discussions concerning
the remainder of the show season and what options exist
to overcome the loss of shows.
At this point in time, we have decided to add a show day
to our June and July show’s pending approval from the
NCHA. This means that we will have 3 shows over 3 days.
We realize that this could create some difficulty for
cutters that do not normally show on Friday but felt it
was the best solution at this time. Other alternatives
that the board explored were to not replace the canceled
shows or to add shows on future dates. We will have a
fresh cattle practice on Thursday before the show,
priority will go to 3 year olds, and then we will open
it up to all horses. We are working on adding additional
events over these 2 weekends, watch the website for
details. For these two shows only, we will price stalls
at $100 for 4 nights, $75 for 3 nights and our normal
rate of $50 for 2 nights. Futurity horses only will
receive their stalls at our cost.
Remember, before any shows take place, the most
important issue is the welfare of all of our horses. We
will make the best possible decisions concerning your
horses before any shows take place. Please visit the
website for the most up to date information and
decisions that we are making concerning moving ahead
with our show season. I hope that all of you are doing
well; I look forward to seeing you at our next show.
Brad
January:
Hi Cutters,
The Holidays are behind us, I hope that all of you had a memorable time.
Our tree’s, (yep, tree’s), are down, almost all of the
leftovers have been eaten, and college football season is
over. The cutting season is just around the corner, I am
looking forward to a great season.
Our year end, or was it our first meeting of the year was held on January
8th. We had a great board meeting as well as a well attended
general membership meeting. The board made several decisions
that will improve the cutting experience this year.
Congratulations to Holly Jones, Vice President, Jeff Sleeman
and Michelle Havens, Board members. Scott Tullis will finish
the remainder of John Paul’s Director term.
The Association has committed to awarding 4 saddles this year; they will
be awarded to the same classes as last year. To be eligible
for any year end award including saddles, a cutter must show
in 50% of shows plus one show. We will also adding two
classes to our shows; the first is an NCHA test class, the
1000 Amateur. The second is a Senior class, open to all
riders 55 plus. This will be an added money, Saturday only
class. The rules for this class are any horse, any rider.
Think 2000 limit rider and substitute senior rider. This
class is open to Trainers, Non Pros and Amateurs. We will
have a year end, winner take all ride off at the LAE Finals
open to all daily winners and all of them will receive a
buckle.
Speaking of the LAE, we are boosting the added money to 23,500. This will
take the futurity to 10,000 added, and 6,000 added in the
derby and the 5/6. Pro am added will stay at 1500.
Cascade Horseman is reworking their format, they are adding
back in the Northwest Cutter section. All WCHA members will
be receiving the magazine as part of their membership.
Membership rates are 40.00 for single members and 50.00 for
family memberships. I think that this will be a great
addition to the area.
We have a great show schedule lined up for 2011; our first
show kicks off on March 5th at Bonina.
See you then.
Brad
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