Dear Friends,

We are looking forward to a great Carmel Valley Ranch Roundup this year! By the time we get to September, we are hoping this stubborn heat will be past us and we be enjoying a cooler fall.

We wanted to let you know of some changes for our event this year. As you know the Roundup is a wonderful community gathering, where folks from all over central California (and further) come to spend a fun weekend with family, friends and horses. Over the past 14 years, with your enthusiasm and input, we have been able to fine-tune the show to make it better match our goals while honoring the wonderful ranching heritage that we have here in Carmel Valley.

One fun addition, that is long overdue, is the addition of kids games to our Saturday schedule. We are happy to announce that we will have two arena games, Carrot Race and Keyhole Race available, plus Dummy Roping for youth on the grass (don’t worry, there is also an adult division).

Another change that we hope will make the weekend more fun is our changes to both the Trail and Ranch Riding classes. We have even renamed the trail class to Trail Challenge. The biggest difference for the Trail class is that the goes are timed, which should make it really fun – highest score with the shortest time wins. In the Ranch Riding class you’ll find we have combined elements from AQHA Ranch Riding classes and Working Equitation just to keep you on your toes.

We are happy to announce our judges and officials for the weekend: Mike Lund (Atascadero, CA) will be judging Cutting, Ranch Riding, Ranch Horse, Buckaroo Boxing, Double Boxing, and Ranch Reining. Laurie Petkus (Santa Cruz CA) will be judging the Trail Challenge. Ray Berta will be judging Old Style Reata Roping. Andy Barrington (King City, CA) will be officiating all of the Ropings as well as the Penning and the Sorting. Bill Kaufman (Salinas, CA) will be officiating Rancher’s Choice and the Games.

Finally, as you may or may not know, September is a tough month to arrange cattle for an event such as ours. Cattle are hard to find at any price and are generally large for our purposes. The other thing that happens, because we are going at it full tilt for two days, the poor cows can get run ragged. We have been aware of this and are trying to find a remedy. What we have come up with, which we hope you will agree is a good solution, is that we are planning to order a fresh load of cows for each day – Saturday and Sunday. The cattle will be fresh and better for every event, and they will go home in better shape too.

Essentially doubling our cattle cost has required that we take a hard look to figure out how to pay for that extra load of cows. We have tried to keep our cost per entry for each class at a modest, incremental increase over last year, even with other expenses going up. The biggest change will be to paybacks, where we have decided to cut the basic payback amount from $20 per entry to $10 per entry. We have also decided to drop paybacks entirely from some classes, and to limit paybacks to classes that meet a minimum number of entries threshold. For more information on paybacks please look at this page (click on Awards/Paybacks): https://roundup.trailandsaddle.club/rules/

We hope you will agree that these changes will help us ensure that the Roundup can continue for years to come. Looking forward to seeing you all next month!

Thank you,
Susan Bancroft and the Roundup Committee