Bainbridge Island Saddle Club

Needs

The Bainbridge Island Saddle Club’s main source of revenue is the monthly horse shows that it holds at the club grounds April through September each year. The shows are geared towards riders and/or horses that are new to showing and for accomplished riders to practice for larger sanctioned competitions. Each month during the show season our local equestrian community comes together to volunteer and cheer each other on at our shows. We are looking to grow our club by adding other equestrian discipline events through the show season that will attract a more diverse membership and generate additional revenue.

One of our biggest challenges during the dry months of summer when these shows are held is keeping enough water on our arenas during the shows. Our large show arena is 240 x 140 feet, the smaller warm up arena is 50 x 80 feet. Both arenas have natural sand footing. Prior to a horse show or scheduled event at the club the arena footing is prepared by a tractor with a drag and water is added during the summer months. This provides our riders and horses with safe footing to ride and jump on, reduces injuries, and keeps the dust levels down. Adding enough water to the arenas has become an increasing challenge in the summer. The current process involves setting up a water wheel sprinkler that runs 21 hours a day for 3 days prior to each show. The water wheel takes 7 hours to complete 1 of 3 sections of the large arena. On hot summer days, the first section may dry out completely before the 3rd section is completed. The manual process is carried out by volunteers and isn’t scalable. Without enough water on the arena, we put our horses and riders at risk of injury. Our smaller warm up arena often doesn’t get enough water as our volunteers and water resources get focused on the larger arena. This challenge prevents us from adding additional shows and mounted events into the event calendar, keeping us from bringing in additional revenue and new members.

An automated irrigation system for the Bainbridge Island Saddle Club would allow us to water our arenas in a fraction of the time it currently takes. The system could be turned on for 30 minutes the night prior to a show to give both arenas a good soak and turned back on during the event lunch break to keep down any dust for afternoon show classes. The automated system would reduce the amount of water waste with the current manual process and cut down on the number of volunteer hours to accomplish the watering task. Ultimately the automated irrigation system will allow Bainbridge Island Saddle Club to host additional equestrian events throughout the show season, adding additional sources of revenue to the club and increasing our membership.