California Snaffle Bit Competitors Power Through Sand Storm

On Nov. 11, a massive sand storm raged through parts of the San Joaquin Valley in California. It caused a 20 car pileup according to NBC Bay Area and wreaked havoc on the California Reined Cow Horse Association (CRCHA) Tulare Fall Classic Snaffle Bit Futurity.

Competitors at the (CRCHA) Futurity had started their show just one day before a haboob and rainstorm caused minor panic and some delays to the schedule.

A haboob is defined as “a violent dust storm or sandstorm” by Merriam-Webster. Basically, a wall of dust, dirt and sand forms carried by strong winds, most often during the formation of thunderstorms, the sediment can cause car accidents when drivers are blinded by it.

The one in California brought many safety concerns for CRCHA show participants and ultimately delayed the show.

“As a show manager, I always check the weather, even if we’re in indoors. So what I saw was that we were going to get a little bit of wind and then rain in the afternoon. So it wasn’t, a big deal to me,” show manager Sofie Larsson said.

Larsson watched the wall of sand approach the show grounds and knew she had some decisions to make but had no idea what exactly was headed their way.

“We had just got done with showing the open hard work and we were settling for the Level 1 herd work. We had, like, six minutes left of the settle and still had three sets left to do,” she said.

When the dust storm did hit, the decision was easy to make. The show would have to be delayed until the storm passed. Although the show arena in Tulare is indoors, large doors to the building were open and many of the horses were being housed in temporary stalls.

Once the wind stopped and the dust literally settled, the rain hit. The downpour, although somewhat short lived, turned the large outdoor warmup arena to mud.

“That’s why we decided to move some the next day’s classes, because we just didn’t have enough warmup arena,” Larsson said.

With a futurity event, Larsson wanted to allow time for the young horses to school and really be prepared to show. No long-term damage was sustained on the facility, including the temporary stalls and people’s living quarters trailers.

“As far as our exhibitors that were there, I want to say I’m very happy with how they handled everything,” said Larsson.

She said the exhibitors remained calm and were happy with the schedule changes. They were all thankful the storm wasn’t any worse.