World's best show jumping horses trot into desert for high-stakes event

If I told you that Olympic athletes were competing for millions of dollars in the desert and you could watch them for free, you'd be excited, right?

Well, get excited. It's happening.

This weekend and next weekend, the newly formed Major League Show Jumping circuit will finish off its second season in Thermal at the Desert International Horse Park (the site formerly known as H.I.T.S before a change in ownership). It features the best show jumpers in North America, including many who participated in and won medals at the Olympics.

"This event is one of the best-kept secrets in the valley, there's no doubt," said Steve Hankin, president and CEO of Desert International Horse Park on Thursday during a media event to promote the competition. "It's a thrill for us to invite the world's best equestrian athletes to come here and show what they can do. We'd love for people from the community to come out and see what is, really other than the actual Olympics, the best chance to see the best riders of the world all competing at the same place."

But let's hold on for a second. Or say "Whoa!" if you will. What exactly is show jumping? What is the Major League Show Jumping tour? And what can fans expect if they head to Thermal to watch the competition this weekend or next weekend?

Show jumping 101

Show jumping is the sport you've probably seen before where riders guide the horse through a course that includes a variety of jumping obstacles. The winner is the rider/horse team that completes the course the fastest and with the fewest faults (knocking off one of the horizontal rails.) It's a simple concept but a lot goes into it I learned during a walkthrough Thursday.

Kent Farrington, who was part of the silver-medal-winning U.S. team at the Rio Olympics in 2016, walked us around the course on the perfectly manicured grass at Desert International Horse Park.

First he showed us how the slightest touch will knock a rail off its moorings, even though the cylindrical wooden bars look quite heavy. There are different types of jumping obstacles with varying heights up to about 5-feet, 3-inches at the tallest. Traditional vertical ones test the horse's ability to jump high. "Oxers" are two vertical obstacles spaced 2 or 3 meters apart to test the horse's ability to jump far. There are also combo-jumps, which are obstacles spaced near each other to the point where the horse has to jump one, land, and then immediately jump another.

The first interesting fact I learned from Farrington is that show jumping is an old-horse's game. In other words, while horse racing often features 2- or 3-year-old horses, all of the horses in show jumping competitions are at least 9 years old. In fact, horses aren't legally allowed to compete at the Olympic level until they are 9 years old because it takes at least five years of training just to get a horse to safely show jump and even more seasoning for them to jump at the highest competitive levels.

As Farrington was explaining the sport to us, other competitors were behind him measuring the course. It looked kind of funny as the human riders were measuring the distance between obstacles by taking giant steps to match the stride of a horse. It was reminiscent of the Monty Python "ministry of silly walks" sketch.

"Yeah, measuring is definitely an important part of it," Farrington said. "Let's say three big human strides equals one horse stride, so we need to see how many strides the horse can take between obstacles."

For humans watching, the obstacles have ornate colorful designs to them. One has a butterfly motif. One was painted to look like a red train. I asked Farrington one of my many lay-person (polite way to say dumb) questions on the day. Do the colorful designs matter to the horse? Can they even see colors?

"Horses see shades of light moreso than color so the design can help the horse be aware of the gate, but the color is not part of that," Farrington said.

Horse rapports

The elite riders have about 5 to 10 competitive horses in their stable and will pick a couple of them to bring for an event like this. Tiffany Foster, a pro rider from Canada who represented her country at the London and Rio Olympics, explained the process.

"Our horses will travel around with us all over the world, but you can't take all of them with you every time because they have to rest," Foster said. "Everybody has their home base. Like for me it's Wellington (Florida). In this case I selected three horses from my team to come to this show. I flew them out here and we'll compete for two weeks and then I'll fly them back home."

Foster did a beautiful job of explaining what makes show jumping such a rewarding and unusual sport compared to other "riding" sports like auto racing or cycling or kayaking. The difference? Cars and bikes and kayaks don't have opinions.

"A lot of this sport is you need to form a partnership with another living being, right?" she said. "We all went car racing together the other night and that was cool, but the car didn't have an opinion. It was going or stopping based on what we did. But in our sport, our teammate also has opinions and thoughts and feelings, and that's why the relationship with the horse is really important."

And it can be difficult to work with a partner who is constantly "neigh"-saying. Apologies, for that one.

The new Major League

Major League Show Jumping is a new concept that originated last year. It's the brainchild of co-founders Keean White and Matt Morrissey, who wanted to create a league in North America so the top riders from the U.S., Canada and Mexico didn't have to travel to Europe to compete at the highest level.

"North America has just as many top riders in the world as Europe but for the last three decades top riders had to leave North America in the summer and go compete in Europe," White said. "Now, they can make the same money, earn the same world ranking points without having to leave the continent. And we tried to make it easy to understand and fan-friendly."

There are eight teams, one of which is the Desert International Roadrunners if local fans want to root on their hometown team. There are 10 tournaments in the season, with the ninth and 10th events these two weekends in the desert. Previous stops on the tour were in Vancouver, Traverse City (Michigan), Toronto, Ottawa, San Miguel De Allende (Mexico) and Monterrey (Mexico).

White compared the new league to soccer, where all the top leagues were in Europe and then Major League Soccer was created in the U.S. There is both an individual and team component to the MLSJ that the competitors love, and the prize money rivals that of the international leagues, which is not lost on them either.

Ashlee Bond, a championship rider who competed for Team Israel in the Rio and Tokyo Olympics, said the development of the new league has been a life-changer.

"I'm a mother and married and have a family so having shows where I can just pop out for a week and pop back and not be away for months at a time is a game-changer for me," said the Los Angeles-based rider who has been coming to the desert since she was 6 years old. "And honestly, the prize money is the same or more, so why leave the country."

Olympic-level athletes who are riding beautiful horses and battling for a total purse of $8 million. It's free to attend and every seat is a front-row seat. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

The $8 million prize money is quite the carrot at the end of the stick for these world-class show jumpers. Of course, for half of the competitors, the carrot alone would be prize enough.

Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.

If you go

What: Major League Show Jumping competition

Where: Desert International Horse Park, 85555 Airport Blvd., Thermal

When: Saturday-Sunday (Dec. 3-4) and Friday-Saturday (Dec. 9-10)

Admission: The family-friendly event has free admission, or patrons can purchase a "Spectator package" which includes food and drink and other perks.

Saturday, Dec. 3 at 2 p.m.: $200,000 MLSJ Team Competition

Sunday, Dec. 4 at 1 p.m.: $217,200 MLSH Grand Prix individual competition

Friday, Dec. 9 at 5:30 p.m.: $200,000 MLSH Team Competition. The final team event of the league season where the championship will be decided.

Saturday, Dec. 10 at 6 p.m.: $450,000 MLSJ Grand Prix. The best in the world battle for a hefty prize.