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On Saturday, June 14, more than 50 participants came out to Dripping Springs Ranch Park (DSRP) to compete in the second installment of the DSRP’s ranch horse series.
These schooling shows are designed to be educational. They're not nationally ranked, but contestants are ranked by hired judges and compete for points, according to ranch manager Lily Sellers.
“The purpose of our shows is to create a really positive learning environment for people,” Sellers said. “We have new riders, young horses, people getting back into showing after years. It's a good group of people that encourage each other to just be in the saddle, enjoy showing and kind of stick with it.”
The ranch horse shows include trail classes, ranch riding and other contests. They are part of the larger DSRP Riding Series, which also include hunter jumpers and dressage. All are schooling shows.
“Our dressage operates as two show days. They're very technical, they're very slow,” Sellers said. “It's beautiful to watch if you know what's happening.”
For the hunter jumper shows, they operate with jumpers on Saturday and then hunters on Sunday. The hunter event involves horses going over fences, but it’s more technical than jumpers. Riders have a specific outfit they have to wear of tan breeches and hunter coats. The jumps are supposed to mimic a fox hunt or hunter course.
“You’ll see faux brick walls or a lot of greenery and plants and stuff like that,” Sellers said. “Jumpers is just the poles and it's speed. They're going over and they're going fast.”
Sellers said a lot of the participants for these shows are from local barns.
“We have all the way from little bitties starting out - which is why we've started a lot of these shows, is to get those younger folks all the way up to really seasoned professionals.”
In each discipline, they have categories for juniors, seniors and open, which is the professional level.
“They all get to be judged within their own experience level, which is nice,” Sellers said. “It still is a competition at the end of the day, so you don't have a brand new rider competing with a trainer who's done this for years.”
In addition to local riders, they also have people who come from all over Texas.
“We are kind of a practice round for some of the nationally ranked shows,” Sellers said. “If there's one that's coming up, we might see a heavier influx because people are coming to prep, and they know that they get to come and practice before they go.”
The city has been running these shows for almost ten years.
“Now they've gotten so big that we're capping the shows and we have to turn people away on some of them,” Sellers said. “They've really grown and we have a lot of really great input from the community and positive feedback.”
All of the shows in the DSRP Riding Series are free admission, and the public is welcome to attend.
“We always are trying to tie people back into our Texas heritage and educate them on both the ag and equine roots of the community,” Sellers said. “We're happy to show them around and give them information, or connect them with a trainer in the area, if they want to start taking lessons.”
