The Whips and Wheels Club asked me to write two articles regarding the history of the club and the horse park. Since I was involved in the building of the one and an early member of the other, I guess that gives me the responsibility. I actually wrote a history of the park back in ’08, but I have changed computers since then and can’t find any copies. Now I am 75 years old and my memories of the 1980s are sketchy at best. But here goes. (Please forgive any inaccurate information.)
Back in 1985, Bob and I had been married for 15 years and had kept horses that entire time. We started by owning grade horses purchased from neighbors and raising Appaloosas and had a lot of fun showing in local open jumping competitions. At some point in the early 80’s, Bob had a veterinary friend on the north side of Indy named Terry Luley who was the whipper-in for the New Britton fox hunting pack, and we were invited to hunt with them as a guest down near Spencer, Indiana. Fox hunting was a blast. While we were there, they invited us to come to their sponsored Combined Training event that fall held at Rancho Allegre north of Indy. We knew nothing of CT, let alone dressage, but again, it sounded like fun. We attended that first event and were ‘hooked’.
Meanwhile, we had also been members of a local club called Boots and Saddles which held monthly horse shows at a little arena near our house on Johnson County Park. We went to these shows because they were close to home and we and our children enjoyed showing our horses in the English Pleasure classes which sometimes included a little jumping in hunter hack. The president of that club was Melissa Hogue (now remarried) and she had founded the club and had also talked Johnson County Park into letting the club build a small arena and secretary’s booth on an old parking lot. The arena still stands and is sometimes rented out by the park. It is now known as Arena VIII, I believe.
Johnson County Park had come into existence at some point after the close of World War II. Camp Atterbury, originally formed from dispossessed farmsteads and country villages, had been a huge, active training and stationing camp for soldiers during the war but was downsized to a National Guard Camp afterwards. All of the army base north of Hospital Road was deeded or leased over to Fish and Wildlife lands, 200 acres of it being designated for Johnson County Park. Barracks and most of the army buildings had been bulldozed and disposed of during this transition, and the old training grounds had returned to a wilder, more natural state. The Parks department had built shelter houses and playgrounds, but much of the acreage lay in mowed fields, old parking lots, and new growth forest, with a few larger buildings still standing.
Anyway, Melissa had told me at one time that what she really hoped to do was get permission to build an indoor arena in the old army warehouse/ tank repair shed that still stood abandoned among some other small buildings just to the south of the little show arena. (That building still stands and was the original ‘indoor facility’ for the park.) But she hadn’t figured out how to accomplish that. It was a pipe dream, really, but she took me over to see it. The windows were all broken, the building was full of old oil and pigeons, and it had a concrete floor. But as all horse owners know, an indoor arena is still something to be desired, and this building was certainly big enough and just falling down from disuse.
I believe it was some time in 1985 when word reached me through friends who were eventers that the Pan Am games were coming to Indy in the summer of 1987 and that they planned to hold the equestrian games at the Indianapolis Fairgrounds. They would be able to include Dressage and show jumping, but the eventers were unhappy that there wasn’t space to include a Three-Day Event. The scuttlebutt was that those in charge were seeking another venue large enough to include not only what we know today as cross country, but also ‘roads and tracks’ and steeplechase, which added the need for even more acreage and miles of course. (Some time in the last 10-20 years, roads and tracks and steeplechase have been mostly eliminated from CT competitions.)
I remembered Melissa Hogue’s dream and went to see Kim Winiger, superintendent of Johnson County Park. The park included enough acreage for everything, if they got permission to use some of the Fish and Wildlife land around them. But, of course, there was no stabling, and no arenas, let alone dressage rings, jumps, etc. It would all have to be built. But Kim was VERY interested and excitedly pointed out that there were warehouses FULL of lumber dismantled from all the old Camp Atterbury buildings that had been torn down to develop the park. AND, the park had use of the building trades students at Job Corps, which was just down the road. Another source of ‘free labor’ could be the Work Release Prisoner Program housed on the camp. There was the large tank repair building that Melissa had been so interested in to hold portable stalls and 4 smaller buildings where permanent stalls could be built. Still, it was not an ideal situation.
But I was very interested in this idea as I had fallen in love with the sport of combined training. So, I called Dr. Luley, who was on the equestrian planning committee, and she came down to look at the park. She urged me to write up a proposal to present to the Pan Am equestrian committee and to Commissioner Jamie Telfor. It took me almost two weeks to put together this proposal with help from Kim Winiger and Melissa Hogue, and then I travelled to the north side of Indy for the next equestrian committee meeting in late September 1985.
The group was determined to find a suitable facility that could include three-day eventing. The Indy Fairgrounds had much to commend it including great stable facilities, grandstand seating, parking, and fencing for security, which was paramount, but no extra acreage. The committee was also looking into using the Rancho Allegre farm on the north side of Indy. The owner of the farm was willing to build more permanent stabling (he could use it in the future for polo events). There was already a nice dressage arena and cross-country course and probably enough acreage for the three-day event. The owner was also willing to add more dressage arenas, warm-up areas, etc. The committee had nearly been convinced to use his property before I arrived to present the Johnson County proposal.
The disadvantage to using our southern park was huge- everything would have to be built from scratch and as much as a million dollars would have to be raised. But in the end, it came down to several advantages to building the Hoosier Horse Park over using Rancho Allegre or the Indy Fairgrounds. Since we would be building from scratch, we could build exactly what we wanted. There was ample room for parking, crowds, and security, which the northern farm did not have. But there were two factors more important than all the others.
First, there needed to be a secure, indoor facility to house the South American horses so that they could be permanently quarantined while in our country due to pyroplasmosis, a South American endemic parasitic infection not yet present in North America. This could be handled in the giant warehouse/new stabling facility. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, Johnson County Park could guarantee that the newly constructed horse park would be available for public use in the future, which could make recouping the public funds spent there possible. Rancho Allegre was privately owned and there would be no such guarantee. Most of the committee members were persuaded by the idea that the Pan Am Games would be contributing to the construction of a permanent horse show park for future use in Indiana. There really was no other such facility in our state or area.
Once the decision was made, and that took a while, it seemed like a very long time until anything really started happening at the park. I suppose contracts had to be signed, money raised and appropriated, contractors hired, and other such legal work done that I wasn’t involved in. I am also certain that without the leadership of Mr. Telfor, himself a powerful lawyer, influencer, contributor, and horseman, the gargantuan feat would never have been pulled off. I also believe that our own Park Board member and long-time equestrian Jim Kirkham was put in charge of Indiana fundraising, another critical issue. But the games themselves were looming; it was worrisome. And once work did start, it seemed to crawl. Having been the one to put my name on the line as to the feasibility of this thing, I was really stressing over it. But to be honest, at this point, it was totally out of my hands.
The first thing we could do, though, was to get the old warehouse cleaned up. I remember that a number of the Boots and Saddles members helped do this. I think the club was excited to hope we might be using it in the future. Unfortunately, that never came to pass. But a group of us put on masks (pigeon poop was piled high in there and full of histoplasmosis) and we began scooping and carrying out the remnants of World War II along with the detritus of decades. Trash had to be hauled off and windows replaced. We had to clean out the large rooms at the front of the building, too. One would become the South American grooms’ quarters, one would become two restrooms, and the largest, the one which has housed the restaurant most recently, would become the vet office. It was big enough that we could have a separate, private quarantine stall in the back of it.
Eventually, bull dozers moved in, and construction began on the grounds. There were abandoned concrete foundations everywhere, asphalt hidden under layers of turf, and all kinds of metal left over from having had soldiers stationed here. Just clearing the land was a monumental task and one that caused more problems than one could have foreseen.
There were separate committees overseeing a) the building of the 3 dressage rings (one for competition and two for warm up), b) one for the stadium jumping ring, and c) one for the cross-country course. I worked at some point with all of these committee-heads, and I can tell you that they were universally frustrated with the lack of funds, cooperation, and time. The footing in the competition dressage ring was done correctly (actually very state-of-the-art for its time), but the warm-up rings ended up being just sand. There was a lot of complaining about that and IDS eventually (after years) replaced all of it with better material.
The stadium jumping ring still stands, but there was no warm-up ring back then. They brought in truck loads of sand three days before competition began for the stadium jumping ring. And they dumped a bunch of sand where barns J and K are now and called it the warm-up area. There was a permanent ditch in the stadium ring and something similar in the warm-up sand. But the footing was really inappropriate for high-level jumpers and the competitors refused to even ride in the jumping ring until the footing was improved. I don’t remember what they had to do- remove some sand or add some. I know we all picked up rocks. But I believe the park revised the footing about a decade later with limestone, and it is actually better now than it was for the Games. Part of the problem was that everything was done so ‘last minute’, and nothing really had time to ‘set up’. Fortunately, they rented the actual stadium jumps, and they were beautiful.
An international course designer came in to plan and build the cross-country course. His name was Paul Popiel and he was from Canada. Everyone was trying to do things on a shoe-string budget, and Paul was willing to work for peanuts but he had no VISA. Jamey Telfer had to take him directly to Washington, as I recall, to get permission for Paul to be in Indiana and begin building. This was in MAY 1997 and the Games were to commence in late July. No wonder we were all on edge.
I remember going with Kim Winiger as he showed Mr. Popiel around the Park acreage available for the cross country course and hearing Paul complain loudly as we drove over countless bumpy tank tracks that had scarred the wood’s trails ever since World War II. But Paul’s biggest complaint was about the lack of topography for his course plans. He said the Park was ‘just too flat!’ Eventually they were able to use the muzzle loader’s shooting berm as a very scary (in my opinion) downhill jump. And when they built the front water jump, they used the dirt to build the hills that stand behind it and were able to get some up and downhill bank jumps there. But since the games were going to be held in the middle of a hot, Mid-western summer, it was agreed that mostly flat going would somewhat help protect the horses from possible over-heating. Paul got help from the Prisoner Work Release program and several of these men were invaluable in getting the course finished on time.
Meanwhile, I had the most contact with Peggy Naile, who was vice-superintendent of the construction. She and I had been high school friends and she has been involved in Johnson County 4H and all horse activity here since the 1970s. She shared my consternation at the slowness of the progression with the stabling. The South American horses were due in mid-July and would quarantine here rather than in Miami or one of the standard quarantine US ports of entry. We put bedding over the concrete floor in the big building, but there was no sign of the portable stalls until the last minute.
Meanwhile we were building permanent stalls in the three outbuildings, now known as A, B, and C for the rest of the 50 horses who would arrive one week later than the first ones in. The building trades students from Job Corps were to build these in the abandoned out-buildings from the old, stored boards that the park was providing. Watching this ‘work’ was very frustrating as they might have 15 students and one teacher at the job site, but maybe only 2 or 3 actually working at any one time. These were inner city kids who had been shipped here and I doubt any of them had ever seen a hammer. When there was less than a week before horses were expected, several of us started pitching in to try and get things done. I believe I personally built half of the stalls in C barn. (Don’t complain if they were poorly built.) And unfortunately, the old dry lumber proved to be brittle and apt to break, not to mention being appetizing to the horses who ended up stabled there. Oh, well. It was what we had.
One fortunate plan did help things along a lot. Lee Ann Zobbe, who is still a big part of the Indiana eventing and dressage community, was asked to run the first ever Indy Dressage Classic in June at the new park as a ‘test run’ for the games. (This show is still on the HHP calendar each year.) I remember Lee Ann’s dismay when she came to get things set up for the show and found that the stalls were not completed, and worse, there was no electricity or running water to the area. How could she have a show or even bring in horses under these conditions. But Lee Ann pulled off a miracle. She had a friend in the plumbing business who came in and somehow got everything wired and plumbed just in the nick of time for her show.
The security fence did get put up in good order and still stands today. But another big frustration to those of us working there was that the quarantine horses were due in, and there were still no exercise arenas. The only reason the FDA vets had allowed the South American horses to be invited to the US was under the terms that they were to be stabled in a secure building and only exercised in a specific, fenced area away from the US horses. They had to be sponged with insecticide before leaving the building and upon their return. The windows in the large warehouse/stable had to remain closed, but we had big fans going everywhere. And thank goodness the grooms’ and vets’ offices were air conditioned. The USDA vets almost canceled the whole thing at the last minute over the pyroplasmosis threat until someone managed to get donated, insecticide fogging portals installed all along the ceiling of the indoor area which sprayed insecticide chemicals every 3 minutes or so. Pyroplasmosis is a tick-born disease, and it was imperative that no ticks bite a carrier horse and then transmit it to another from a different country, especially our own. The USDA vets were ‘down our throats’ during the whole event.
There were to be two arenas constructed for exercising horses (and for future use as show arenas.) The local Western and rodeo clubs wanted one arena to be specific for future shows in their genre and needed tall, well-built fences to eventually hold steers and even bulls. Terry Wagerman, a local friend who showed roping and reining horses, oversaw this construction. That arena still stands today, although it was originally double fenced.
The other arena was to be called the ‘English’ arena. This was where the quarantined horses were to be exercised and was to be built where Baker arena now stands. (Eventually, a gracious local woman named Naomi Baker, who owned Paso Finos, designated money in her will to build the indoor facility.) The park had gotten donated, white, PVC board fence for this arena, but the materials sat in boxes on a wagon. I believe they hoped a company would eventually donate the construction of this arena, as well, but it just never happened. Two days before the first horses were to arrive, those of us volunteers who were working at the park realized that we HAD to get this arena up one way or another, or the quarantined horses would be relegated to the indoor barn 24/7, given the FDA restrictions.
So, my three teenage children, my husband, and three other non-construction types set about putting up this beautiful white fencing. Gratefully, the park had a tractor-driven post hole digger, but that only made things slightly easier. We did the best we could with string and levels, but still the resulting arena was far from perfect. At least the South American horses had ‘an enclosed space to exercise’ when they arrived. But the company that had donated the fencing threw a fit and eventually (after the Games) paid to have it dug up and installed ‘correctly’ so that they would get good advertising out of it. I hardly cared. I had hit my thumb with a sledgehammer during the process and paid dearly for the next two weeks for my service!
Finally, on July 22, 1987 (if my memory is correct), the horses arrived from South America. It was a blistering, July afternoon. All 22 horses had been flown in together on a plane and transferred directly into totally enclosed trailers and shipped down to the new horse park (still under construction.) They walked out of those vans in the blankets, if you can believe it, that they had been shipped in from SA, where it was now winter. None had been clipped. They were dripping sweat and some in distress. So were their attendant grooms.
My husband was officially in charge of the ‘vet office’ for the games. But as he was running his own, very busy practice in Franklin, much of the organization of this fell to me. However, Bob’s connections with other vets and the vet schools were invaluable. He also had great relationships with most of the drug companies who supplied veterinary products to his growing practice. This allowed him to begin gathering stores of donated medical products which would be invaluable to our mission. And the Franklin Animal Clinic also provided all the equipment and syringes and such which would be necessary for a fully staffed vet office.
With Bob’s contacts, we had already organized lists of volunteers to do the vet work. This incorporated many vet students and vet techs who graciously signed up for time slots to be at the park over the next 4 weeks. It also included 7 Indiana vets who donated their time. Chief of these was the retired Dr. Ed Page of Purdue who was to oversee the quarantined horses. No one could enter the quarantine barn if they were subsequently going to be anywhere near other horses in the next 24 hours. This eliminated many, many potential volunteers including most of the other vets and my husband, as well. I did have 4 volunteers on hand ready to enter the barn.
We all looked at each other. It was obvious that, besides checking passports and paperwork and doing physicals on all these animals, many were going to need fluids and veterinary support not to mention clipping. Dr. Page felt overwhelmed. I had not planned to go into the quarantine barn as I had animals of my own at home. I had lost my adored veteran show horse just the week before to a bad reaction to the new ‘founder vaccine’ and I was still grieving hard over that loss…never mind the stress of getting the quarantine station ready and personnel on staff. Now I realized that Dr. Page and the four volunteers were not going to be able to do this without help. So, I gave up all hope of seeing or working with my own young horses for the next month and stepped into the barn. Is it any surprise that I came down with a case of shingles that night.
The next 24 hours were a blur of checking, treating, clipping and seeing to the needs of all those horses and their grooms, many of whom did not speak English. I had to keep records of every TPR done twice daily on every horse and deal with USDA inspections, make sure our volunteer techs arrived to assist with the physicals, see that all animals were sponged before and after leaving the barn, keep the exercise schedules for the various teams, and handle all the paperwork and any problems that came up. There were many that I couldn’t have predicted.
I remember one challenge that arose the very first day. McDonald’s had graciously volunteered meals for all the grooms. When these Hispanic laborers were handed their sacks of Big Macs and fries, they all mumbled unintelligible words and threw the sacks in the trash. It turned out all they really wanted was rice and beans. We had problems with paperwork that wasn’t correct, constant complaining about the facility and weather, and volunteers who didn’t show up. But there was more good than bad most days.
For one thing, scores of volunteers from around the area and even out of state turned out to volunteer and assist during the actual Games. Each volunteer had to go to Indy and get credentialed and pick up name badges and tee shirts. This was just for equestrian, and I can’t even imagine how many volunteers it took to run all of the other venues and sports. There were security people at the gates who had to check each of us before we were allowed into the show grounds. The Games absolutely could not have run without this structure of volunteers in place and I have no idea who organized it or how they found so many.
Besides many in my own family who volunteered, I remember that Jana Burbrink (a friend I had met through driving competitions and a current member of IWWI) and her husband Dale worked tirelessly to support the games. Dale and Jana helped with transportation of officials and competitors and even grooms. And when the construction crew didn’t have enough dump trucks to haul in sand for the arenas, Dale used his lime truck. The job literally took hundreds of volunteers, both to get the Park finished in time and to run the Games themselves.
Miraculously, all of the South American horses remained healthy and in good shape. We never did have to use our special quarantine stall. No pyroplasmosis ever spread to our county. The games themselves ran pretty smoothly and were lots of fun to watch. And most blessedly, when the day of cross country arrived, a cold front blew through, and the weather and footing freshened nicely. We had stockpiled gallons and gallons of IV fluids, anticipating over-heated and stressed animals. We used very few of those and did not have to employ our horse ambulance or any of the veterinary staff out on course.
All in all, I believe the Pan Am Games of ’87 was considered to be a success. (Canada won four of the gold medals and the US two.) Despite the hard work, those of us involved enjoyed much of it and especially watching and meeting the human and equine athletes. Bob had some fascinating conversations with General Burton, president of the judging jury. And my husband particularly appreciated working with and learning from the official delegation of three FEI vets and became good friends with Dr. Matamoras from Mexico and Dr. Fred McKellen (sp?) from North Carolina. This led to Bob’s later appointment as an FEI vet himself and several fun trips and events for both of us after that including the Central American Games two years later and most recently the 2009 FEI level Driving Event in Lexington in preparation for the World Championships. I will always treasure the Pam Am poster I saved with so many signatures on it. No one could come into my vet office without putting their John Hancock on my poster.
After sharing with you all the hard work I put into helping get the park authorized and built, I must admit that I had some selfish reasons for doing so. Bob and I were in love with 3-day eventing and dressage, but we were usually forced to trailer long distances to show our horses. I knew that having a show venue practically in my own backyard would be a blessing to me perhaps more than anyone else in the years to come. And it truly came to pass that there has not been a time when I did not have horses doing some activity at the HHP multiple times a year, whether it was jumping, eventing, dressage, pleasure, training, clinics, or now driving events. I have even run shows there many, many seasons.
The history of the Hoosier Horse Park was smoother after its rocky but historic start. Clubs began immediately signing up to use the park and it was financially successful, although the County Parks absorbed and spent most of what was netted. For a few years, the county park superintendent had to also oversee the horse park, but it eventually got its own staff. They have added barns and secretary booths and arenas over the years and refurbished old ones. The quarantine barn did do a stint as an indoor arena (Dunn arena), but the erection of Baker Arena soon brought that to a close.
Indiana Combined Training Association, now IEA, soon began constructing lower jump courses of their own out on the original cross-country lanes and in later years, Indiana Whips and Wheels added driving obstacles to the marathon courses. Indiana Dressage Society has also played a part in improving the park. I’m not sure when the Boy Scouts came onto the scene, but they have made improvements to the facility, too. Indiana Saddle Horse Association, Indiana Barrel Racing Association, Pony Club, many breed clubs, and most recently The Spring and Fall National Drives have all contributed to the success of Indiana’s premier horse show grounds. But let us never forget the tireless efforts of countless volunteers and financial contributors to the original building of this boon to our Indiana equestrian community.
