Lory State Park Rededicates Equestrian Cross Country Course
On Sunday, September 20, 2015, Lory State Park celebrated the reopening of their Equestrian Cross Country Course. Representative from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the Colorado Parks Foundation, Friends of Lory State Park, members of the Mountain States Eventing Association, and volunteers involved in the rebuild attended the rededication ceremonies, including a ribbon-cutting. Local and regional riders then toured the facility, demonstrating their riding skills over the newly rebuilt series of jumps.
All jumps were designed to be portable for easy course placement, and were built to specified design standards promoted by the United States Eventing Association. Over the past 20 months, Volunteers cleaned out the burned sites, removed the dangerous debris and hardware, and rebuilt over 40 jumps. There are currently ten styles of portable jumps, including log piles, log ramps, log cabins (with faux doors and windows!), bunkers, rolltops, corner jumps, trakehners, beer barrels, and picnic tables. There are at least four examples of each style in the field course, corresponding to the first four USEA rider levels: Intro (or Beginner), Beginner Novice, Novice, and Training – with jump heights ranging from 24-ins. to 39-ins. All the new jumps are approachable from both directions, essentially posing over 80 course "questions" for the horse and rider. Work on the course will continue periodically as more jumps are added. This practice and training course is open year round for use, and is the only public facility of its kind in the northern Colorado region.
Thanks go out to the Colorado Parks Foundation; the Friends of Lory State Park; the Mountain States Eventing Association; several key Eagle Scouts; groups such as Otter Cares, the Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado (VOC), the CSU English Riding Club, the Colorado Addicted Trailbuilders Society (CATS), the Overland Mountain Bike Club (OMBC); as well as the many individual volunteers who made this dream a reality.
