A longtime New York State Fair tradition is ending this year after barrel racing competitors pulled out over a new safety policy that limits vehicle access on the fairgrounds.<\/p>\n
For decades, barrel racing has been part of the fair, with competitors bringing horses onto the grounds to unload, stable and prepare for events. Tammy VanEtten, director of NBHA NY-O7, said the group has attended the fair for more than two decades. \u201cWe\u2019ve been going to the fair 20-plus years,\u201d VanEtten said.<\/p>\n
That run will stop this year, according to the New York State Barrel Horse Association, which said new traffic policies make it impractical to participate. Under the policy, private and vendor vehicles are prohibited from driving inside the fairgrounds between 8:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. each day.<\/p>\n
VanEtten said the group learned about the change months ago. \u201cWe were told a couple months ago,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat they\u2019re asking is unreasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Competitors said the restrictions would force them to unload horses overnight and then compete just hours later. Summer Caspari, the Oswego County representative for NBHA NY-O7, said, \u201cYou might not be unloading until two o\u2019clock in the morning.\u201d Caspari added, \u201cthen you\u2019re maybe getting an hour or two sleep before you have to be up and feed your horse before you run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fair officials said the policy is aimed at improving safety for people and animals. State Fair Director Julie LaFave said staff saw multiple concerning situations last year involving vehicles moving through large crowds. \u201cWe had a lot of scary situations,\u201d LaFave said. \u201cWe saw things last year that were a lot of vulnerabilities, a lot of things that could have gone wrong very quickly. And we had to make some tough decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaFave said the fair consulted with Homeland Security, state veterinarians, federal partners and other large events before announcing the changes six months ago. She also said the barrel horse association is the only agricultural group that has fully declined to participate because of the policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don’t feel it’s a responsible thing to run a reactive fair. We don’t want to wait until an incident happens,\u201d LaFave said.<\/p>\n
The fair said it adjusted arrival times and offered alternative stabling options, but the barrel horse association said those solutions still do not work for exhibitors or their animals.<\/p>\n
For competitors, the loss goes beyond the event itself. Caspari said the group will miss interacting with fairgoers who may not see horses regularly. \u201cThey don\u2019t get to see a horse every day,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just really sad that we won\u2019t be able to see those smiles anymore\u2014not only from the kids, but from the parents as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaFave said the fair does not plan to change the policy before this year\u2019s event, but officials will review how the new rules work after the fair and continue conversations with exhibitors about possible changes in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A longtime New York State Fair tradition is ending this year after barrel racing competitors pulled out over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-316367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}