Red Hills Horse Trials, Tallahassee, FL, March 8-10, 2002

Red Hills Hosts Another Successful Horse Trials in its Own Garden of Eden
by Ken Rogan

What more perfect setting than Colin Phipp's Eden could there be for the fifth Red Hills horse trials? Dressage arenas, a challenging cross country course and a show jumping stage surrounded by cheering crowds all added up to three wonderful days in Tallahassee for competitors and spectators alike.

Events of this quality are rare, but when you have two fiercely determined organizers in Sallie Ausley and Sylvia Ochs - who are not happy to rest on the success of previous years - sometimes you can turn a dream into a reality. "It gets easier for everybody, particularly when you have 500 volunteers helping out," said Sallie Ausley.

Ever seeking to improve on any detail, Sylvia was pleased with how the huge number of spectators was handled. "One of the things we tried to do this year was cut down on traffic in the trade fair area, and I think the shuttle service we ran succeeded in doing that," she said.

The other special ingredient in the Red Hills success story was added through the strong community ties and local patronage offered by the people of the Tallahassee region. This year saw a record number of visitors on the ground, particularly on Saturday for the cross country, as spectators ambled about the course from early morning to pick their spot for the action. This is what makes Red Hills extra special for the riders.

"It is great to come to an area where the sport has such a good profile and the locals enjoy the events as much as the competitors," said double Olympic team gold medallist, Australian Philip Dutton, winner of the CIC** event at Red Hills.

Olympic champion David O'Connor who won the overall advanced division agreed: "Everything about the event was top class. The unusual thing here is the people and community who come out in such good numbers. That's very rare and exciting for us," he said.

Holding the different arenas and courses together was a trade fair set beneath a canopy of live oak trees and anything from designer sunglasses to the famed sandwiches of Outback Jack's Roadkill Grill. But it wasn't just a place to persuade you to part your purse strings; it was also a center for the culture of eventing and local wildlife study. Paul Shushereba of the Texas Rangers spoke at length about the history and development of eventing from its early days in the Nineteenth century military. Mere feet away the Tri-state avian society offered information and discussion on butterflies indigenous to the region, while the Ochlockonee Pony Club encouraged beginners and enthusiasts to take a pony ride, tour the competitors' stables, and even join a local club anywhere in the country. If none of that tickled your fancy you could always just grab a snow cone and laze in the shade on a stack of hay bales and watch the stream of sunny smiles flow by. Also deserving of praise and thanks are the local businesses that sponsored the event and the local media who gave it excellent coverage. The event made front-page news every day for a week in the Tallahassee Democrat, and advertising on WCTV-Channel 6 kept the public aware that good times were going down at Red Hills. Grateful thanks are also due to the Capital City Bank Group, Capital Eurocars, The City of Tallahassee, Comcast, the Leon County Sheriff's Dept., Liberty Communications Inc., Maui Jim Sunglasses, Sprint, Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, and Teco Energy, whose generous donations help to make this wonderful event possible.

Settled in the shade at the trade fair and catching a breeze while the dreamy Spanish moss lulls you to sleep, one could easily be forgiven for thinking, "I'm in Eden and it sure feels like the edge of heaven."