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From the Desk of Marty Schaffel: Exciting Information to Share

I know this past month has not been a bundle of great news. Turning on the television was more scary than enlightening.  But I must say there continues to be encouraging news.  Here are some data points I have observed and would like to share.

    States are slowly finding ways to open things up.  And not wide open, but incrementally. The governor of Kentucky has asked for proposals and guidance from industries like ours on how to do it safely for our individual sectors. The work we have been doing to create these is paying off! The Joint Leadership Council, comprised of representatives of Morgans,  Hackneys, UPHA, Saddlebreds, Road Horses, and the American Saddlebred Registry, have been very actively working together on efforts to get our barns open and horse shows back in action.  This has been an amazing group to work with. Quietly this group has produced some great results which will be obvious. The JLC created the survey most of you responded to. 4,000 responses!  We learned a lot from it. We learned that people will be more likely to return to their barns and horse shows if they feel safe!  We are creating those guidelines. We learned that there is a significant segment of our members who will not fly but will drive to horse shows. We learned sadly that numerous people are financially affected by this pandemic and may not be able to afford showing this year.  We hope that will dramatically change as things open up. Life is coming back. It will be different. Social distancing will be with us for a long time. Sanitation and cleanliness will be rigorous. Audiences may be smaller. But we are coming back. I am excited about our future. We can get past this. But we will have to be accepting of our new reality and embrace it. A return of this virus would be very difficult to overcome. So we must fight that prospect.

I am grateful to the members of all the associations we are working within the JLC. We have shown extraordinary collaboration, and the results are coming forward.  We will be back. Slowly but surely.

Marty Schaffel, ASHA President