January 26, 2012

Mr. LaCroix,

This is the first communication I have received directly from you. Your comments in Arabian Horse World were editorial in nature and not addressed directly to me. The communications you mentioned pertaining to Bill Hughes, chair of the U.S. Nationals Show Commission, were considered as well as the other responses supporting or not supporting possible national show locations of the U.S. Nationals show. Until Bill had a meeting of the U.S. National Show Commission, he took the position of remaining neutral until he had received additional input from all the Commission members plus input from the APAHA representatives who advise the Commission regarding issues and concerns of the U.S. Nationals. The Commission met this past weekend having sent 12 solicitations across the United States; 4 were returned and were reviewed and evaluated for the 2013 to 2017 contract period. Once the written recommendation is received, I will forward it to the AHA Board for consideration at our March meeting.

I find it interesting none of your editorial comments — or this letter —address an alternative to Tulsa. Since you do not consider Tulsa acceptable to your standards, I am curious as to your ideal location and why. You also stated I solicited the APAHA letter to be written. Upon seeing your editorial comment, the APAHA board responded on their own initiative — this was voluntary on their part, and never solicited by me. While you have generated signatures regarding your personal editorial, as in any business, we felt it important to analyze those responding. Looking back three years at U.S. Nationals, less than 25 percent of the respondents have been exhibitors (less than 10 percent of U.S. National exhibitors); this result does not minimize my recognition of their responses in agreement with your editorial.

Therefore based on the above figures, it could be concluded that you may not speak for the majority of our U.S. Nationals exhibitors, many of whom made positive comments at the U.S. Nationals, Professional Horsemen's, and APAHA meetings at the 2011 AHA convention.

At this point I am waiting for you to state what you think is an alternative site and the reasons you make your recommendation. As you know, we have a process for determining our U.S. Nationals location and we are in the middle of that process at this time. I expect shortly to have the U.S. National Commission’s recommendation and I intend to then forward it to the AHA Board of Directors for discussion and final determination at our March board meeting.

You mentioned issues regarding this past year’s U.S. Nationals. These were already under discussion between APAHA and the Commission and were revisited at their recent meeting I am told. These will also be discussed at our upcoming board meeting. You also addressed AHA communications with the membership. This is consistently done through Modern Arabian Horse, our website, eBlasts, news releases, region and delegate meetings, and Convention meetings, to name a few methods of communication. Our Facebook page incidentally has 37,867 friends and there has been little posted through that medium relative to Tulsa. The fact we are in the process of deciding on the U.S. Nationals venue for 2013 to 2017 has been well publicized and circulated. In addition, I have been present on the grounds throughout the show each of the years I have been President and have had numerous conversations with exhibitors and many of your fellow professionals. In the last year those conversations were very positive and I received many thanks for the improvements of the last few years and the willingness of the U.S. National Show Commission to respond to their needs.

I look forward to your considerations for the ideal site for U.S. Nationals and why.

Sincerely,
Lance Walters, President
Arabian Horse Association