The Brown County 4-H Horse and Pony Club will not have its show during the fair this year.

It’ll take place instead on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 25 and 26.

The contesting show was scheduled for July 15 at the horse and pony arena on the county fairgrounds, but the club leader and the Brown County Purdue Extension office postponed it due to weather.

Some club parents and members are upset about that decision and others.

“If that’s their main club and that’s what they do, they now do not get to participate because they postponed it until August. That’s after the fair. What difference does it make?” said Sheila Blake, a Horse and Pony Club parent.

“When you take a grand champions’ picture … you’re not going to include Horse and Pony because there aren’t going to be any.”

Safety and liability were reasons the show was postponed. Brown County 4-H Fair Board President Mark Stargell said he had Lori Kritzer, the current leader of the Horse and Pony Club, lock the arena the week before the Saturday contest because people were trying to ride in it when ground conditions weren’t safe.

The Horse and Pony Club built the arena in 2007 and the club is responsible for maintaining it.

Blake said she offered to help make it usable, but no one has accepted her family’s offer or the offers from other families in the club.

The entire fairgrounds’ dirt is clay that sits on top of creek gravel, she said.

“When you have 1,000 horses running in an arena in the span of a year, or you’ve got cars or tractors driving in the dirt, what happens is you pack all that clay down that sits on top of that arena and it ends up acting like a bowl. It holds water,” she said.

“What we found out that first year is we go down about 18 or 20 inches and we break that clay up and we get down to the creek gravel, the arena drains beautifully, it’s very safe and it’s some of the best dirt,” she said.

Kritzer could not be reached for comment.

Blake’s family is one of the families who helped build the arena. She was leader of the club until five years ago.

She said that when the arena was built, an agreement was made between the club and the fair board that the arena would remain open for the public and 4-H members to use.

“The only stipulation was that you’re there, it’s not a meeting and you’re riding at your own risk,” Blake said.

Locking it prevents 4-H members from practicing for area contests and the state fair, she said.

But fair board and Purdue Extension employees say safety is still a big concern.

“If there is standing water in that arena, people should not be in it. It’s dangerous for the kids and it’s dangerous for the horses,” said Alyssa Besser, the extension educator for agriculture, natural resources and 4-H youth development.

“You will not go to another fairground and find an unlocked arena,” Stargell said. “The Purdue guidelines are there. We’re all following them.”

If a person is injured while riding in the arena, the fair board’s insurance would be liable, Stargell said.

Blake said the club is facing a declining enrollment and has not had as many practices or events in the arena as in years past.

She said the arena also offers opportunities for other livestock clubs to raise money during Horse and Pony contests, because they can work selling concessions in the food booth.

Besser said the goal of 4-H is to provide a “positive experience for everybody.”

“That’s really just what we’re trying to do here,” she said.

“I wish they could all get along, because it’s about the kids,” Stargell said.