Omaha Forums

Omaha World Herald's John Ferak wrote:One of the country's top equestrian competitions returns to Omaha in April, and organizers anticipate a bigger turnout.

The International Omaha will take place April 11 to 13 at the CenturyLink Center and could draw more than 100 riders from across the United States and a handful of international countries. More than 90 riders from 18 different states and three Canadian provinces came to Omaha for last spring's inaugural two-day competition. About 8,700 fans attended.

Omaha may play host to an international equestrian competition in 2017 — that is, if the CenturyLink Center can beat out venues in London, Hong Kong and a Dutch city called 's-Hertogenbosch.

The Switzerland-based Fédération Equestre Internationale announced this week that it is considering bids from those four cities to host its 2017 World Cup Finals.

Both Omaha and London have said they would host the organization's show jumping and dressage finals. Hong Kong has put in a bid to host only the jumping event, while 's-Hertogenbosch has bid to host dressage, the “horse dancing” event that requires riders and horses to perform specific movements.

Local equestrian enthusiasts have been pushing to land more major events in Omaha. The International, a two-day horse jumping competition held in April, attracted about 140 riders from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Ireland and South America – and an estimated 17,000 spectators. About 8,500 of those were paid ticket holders.

The World Cup would be much larger, running for four days, attracting participants from across the world and having an estimated attendance of 80,000. Past events in other cities have attracted more than 70,000 people.

MadMartin8 wrote:That'd be huge to draw that many people from around the globe. With any luck, Shamrock will be done by that time as well to get people some things to do around the area.

nebugeater wrote:

MadMartin8 wrote:That'd be huge to draw that many people from around the globe. With any luck, Shamrock will be done by that time as well to get people some things to do around the area.

Lest see them get the bid first.  

Would be great to get and I bet they have a better chance than those in the "big" city's would guess

bigredmed wrote:I didn't know that Mercedes and BMW were so heavily into this.  Saw riding teams from both companies.

Omaha has been picked to host an equestrian world championship event, beating out Hong Kong and the Dutch city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch for the honor.

The four-day event will be held in spring 2017 at the CenturyLink Center and is expected to attract 80,000 people.

Coyote wrote:Shamrock hotel will be finished...

equisearch.com wrote:Raves, raves, raves! Everyone was saying good things about this weekend's ramped up International Omaha show, which was a test event for the 2017 World Cup finals at the state-of-the-art CenturyLink Center downtown.

The officials who will be part of the finals next year were going through their paces, seeing what works and what needs to be changed for the city's debut on the global equestrian scene 10 months from now.

Those who hadn't been to the facility previously were both awe-struck and impressed.